Easter with my cousin’s daughter.

Maintaining a restoration project like "Rusticana" often feels like living in a state of permanent "work-in-progress." Because the house is frequently a chaotic landscape of exposed wiring, half-painted walls, and the ever-present Karoo dust, we generally keep our trips quite exclusive. We have always been hesitant to host guests; it is difficult to offer true hospitality when you are navigating a construction zone and the primary "furniture" consists of sawhorses and tool crates.

However, this past Easter, I decided to break our unofficial rule. Recognising that my daughter, Aidan, has spent many of her formative years watching us work, I thought it was high time she had some peer company to share the experience. I reached out to my cousin and invited his daughter to join our convoy for the long weekend. My cousin and his wife were thrilled with the idea, and their daughter arrived with a sense of adventure that perfectly matched the spirit of the project.

This trip was a departure from our usual high-intensity renovation "blitzes." Instead of the gruelling timelines of the past, we curated a more relaxed Easter getaway. Our primary goal was to balance the joy of family bonding with the steady drip of progress. While the girls spent their time exploring the unique corners of the house and the town—forming the kind of childhood bonds that only a remote location like Brandvlei can foster—we focused on the "quiet" work.

We spent our mornings tackling small, non-critical repairs that had been sidelined during more intensive phases. It was a weekend of fine-tuning: tightening fixtures, checking seals, and, most importantly, taking a series of exhaustive measurements. As we prepare to move into the more complex stages of the main house restoration, having a precise blueprint of every nook and cranny is vital. Standing with a measuring tape in one hand and a coffee in the other while the house echoed with the laughter of the girls was a stark, beautiful contrast to the solitary labour of previous years.

Ultimately, this Easter was less about entertaining in the traditional sense and more about integrating our family life into the evolution of the house. It proved that even in its unfinished state, the homestead has a way of bringing people together. We left Brandvlei not just with updated floor plans and minor fixes, but with the realisation that the house is already becoming a home, even before the last coat of paint has dried.