Building: The house is solidly built with bricks and cement. The windows are beautiful and custom wood windows in British style. The fact that in South Africa no insulation is required (see above “air conditioning / heating”), leads buildings which are not as tight and sealed such as in Germany. This means in practice that windows and doors are a little game, and at strong wind they can rattle sometimes. This is normal. We have felt the rattling on windy days rather cozy than annoying.
The name of our house “The Gem” needed a longer development time and comes not least from our guests. The Gem means in English “gem, jewel, special.” In the bginning this name was feeling a little bit too “cool” for us. But all the guests who have been in our house, have said from themself, that it is indeed a very special house, and it is perhaps even unique like a gem. The number of regular guests in our house has been growing steadily, which we interpret as a sign that this house and the location really has to be something special. We then eventually decided to name our house as seen by our guests: The Gem