The MKH Story

My love affair with the Karoo started with the plants. Many years ago, I lived on a property outside the village of McGregor on the edges of the Klein Karoo, where I had to trek up a steep driveway as it curved around the sides of a small hill, to get to my home. In the early evenings I would walk down the same driveway, doggy and kitty in tow, pausing every so often to shift the branches of a nearby shrub to peer at the little cacti and succulents hiding underneath. The scenery was everchanging, with layers of mountain in the distance in varying shades, and a never-ending cycle of flowers, each plant species patiently waiting their turn to bloom. It was on one of my walks I discovered a fragile little plant with tiny deep-red flowers, stiff petals arranged in a tight swirl -- Poprosie in Afrikaans, Doll's Roses in English, or the Latin name of Hermannia filifolia var. grandicalyx (or one of its variants). Occasionally I would pick a few scraggly stems, putting them in a tall shot glass which doubled as a too-large vase, to sit next to my laptop where, for the remainder of the evening, their gentle fragrance of talcum powder would fill the air.

I then discovered little Lithops, found further afield in the Karoo, and they quickly became my favourite favourite. These grey, green, and brown succulents, each with articulated patterns on their flattish-surfaces, masquerade as small stones so as to escape the notice of nibbly buck. After moving back to Cape Town, I long hankered after the idea of owning a small cottage in the Karoo, a base from which I could explore. I ended up finding a lovely 80-year old house in Fraserburg, a home with high ceilings, wooden floors, and wonky walls. Fraserburg is a small town deep in the Karoo, known for its fossils, a track of dinosaur footprints imprinted on rocks found on a farm outside the town, and ... not much else. 

In Cape Town, I moved into a run-down Victorian, a fixer-upper with black-painted walls, lots of crumbling plaster and a very dodgy staircase, which I have been slowly renovating to the style of what I call, contemporary Victorian. It has been an unexpectedly joyful experience, sourcing things like vintage lighting, petite balusters for the new staircase, ornate gypsum cornices and ceiling roses I know my mom would have loved, and lots and lots of tile. I've been shifting my decor to a more neutral palette, taking my more eclectic treasures to my Karoo home.

My Karoo home is also slowly undergoing a gentle change - the interior walls right now are a dirty peach, a remnant from the previous owner, and I want to change them to an off-white colour with a green undertone for warmth, a colour that envelopes you as you walk in, but is also not too dark. Nine test colours later, with Midas Paints in Tygervalley replicating several Farrow & Ball colours for me, and me painting and repainting an area in my Cape Town home which has similar lighting, I finally decided on James White. Choosing a colour for the outside of the house was a little easier ... in Fraserburg there is a lot of wind and dust, so white walls don't really stay white, and most of the houses in the town are painted in varying shades of brown. I thought pink would be a better option, a pink with a peachy undertone so that over time, the dust would merge with the walls, creating a patina reminiscent of the terracotta pink-hued walls of Marrakesh.

I've been busy with my thesis for several years now, so I don't get to my Karoo home that often. The mobile signal is unfortunately no match for Overleaf, the online application I use for my writing, so currently the length of my visits is limited to the maximum guilt I can tolerate being away from my laptop, constrained further by the limited window of opportunity to get there. There are so many kudu for the last two hours of the trip, that driving after dark is rather risky. I wanted to start a small business to supplement my income in anticipation of a post-doc, so I have been collecting beautiful fabric and vintage lighting for years now, stashed away in boxes and those giant Pep bags, waiting for this moment. I travel to overseas conferences regularly, and I thought it might be a good idea to source some locally-made fabrics on my travels to make up into cushions, taking advantage of the few unused-kilos of my baggage allowance. Academia takes you to interesting places, and so far I've been to the UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, Canada, Macau, Austria, and Greece, with short stops in other countries en-route, attending conferences held in out-of-the-way towns and cities that I would never have ventured travelling to as a mainstream tourist with my puny Rands. On my most recent trip to Athens, I came back with a small selection of fabrics manufactured locally in Greece and Spain. Visiting interesting little fabric shops both here in Cape Town and abroad, crammed to the gills with beautiful textures and colours, has been another unexpected facet to my life that I find great joy in.

During Covid, I discovered the art of tile-making, zooming off to Cape Pottery Supplies to buy clay as soon as the lockdown level allowed. Inspired by the plaster casts of Rachel Dein, I started imprinting collected plants and flowers into clay, intended as a splashback for my water closet, which then became a desire to create a custom tile feature for every room. My Karoo home is no exception, and custom tile for the front windows and the entrance floor by the front door is a work-in-progress. The front windows are to have a border of pink-patterned encaustic cement tile from Moroccan Warehouse (the same pink hue as the soon-to-be pink walls), surrounded by earthenware scallops as a border, made by me. The entrance hall is to have square earthenware tiles, with a small circular stoneware tile inset between a layout of four, both also made by me.

This little website is a mixture of many things, all intended for a perfectly-imperfect aesthetic inspired by the wildness and stillness of the Karoo. Some things are available now and some are planned: lots and lots of cushions, custom-designed South African-made fabric, to be printed here in Cape Town, handmade tile, vintage lighting, fixtures such as new and vintage cupboard handles, wooden balusters to my own design, wooden furniture legs, also to my own design, french-style curtain rails, and ornate wrought iron gate "toppers" to my own design, with special little decor items here and there. I hope you enjoy it.

1 September 2024