- +27 64 364 8104
- info@aroundthehouse.co.za
Around The House is a building and renovation company based in Fish Hoek, working right across Cape Town — the Deep South, the Southern Suburbs, the Atlantic Seaboard and out as far as Somerset West. Kitchens, bathrooms, extensions and whole-house remodels, run by one team from the first site visit through to the final snag list. Rated 5.0 on Google from 20 reviews.
Most people come to us with one room in mind and end up doing more, because in an older Cape Town house the jobs are connected. You cannot re-tile a bathroom without looking at what the waterproofing underneath has been doing for the last fifteen years. You cannot open up a kitchen wall without knowing whether it is carrying the roof. A renovation is really a sequence of trades in the right order, and most of the cost and most of the delays come from getting that sequence wrong.
A typical whole-house job with us runs something like this: strip out and demolition, then any structural work and new openings, then first-fix plumbing and electrical, then plaster, screed and waterproofing, then tiling and joinery, then second-fix, then paint and the final clean. Each stage has to be signed off before the next one starts, because going back to fix something buried behind a wall is what turns a reasonable quote into an expensive one.
We handle all of it in-house or with trades we have worked with for years — brickwork, plastering, roofing, waterproofing, tiling, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, paving and painting. You deal with one person, not seven subcontractors who each blame the last one.
Before you start, our guides on architect vs builder, structural problems to check before buying, demolition and asbestos in older homes answer the questions we hear most.
We come out and look at the actual house. Not a phone estimate — the price of a renovation is decided by things you can only see on site: the state of the roof, whether there is damp in the walls, how old the electrical board is, what the floor is sitting on. The visit is free and there is no obligation attached to it.
You get the work broken down by stage, not a single number at the bottom of a page. That matters because it lets you see where the money is going and cut scope sensibly if the total comes in higher than you hoped. It also means there is no argument later about what was and was not included.
Extensions, structural changes and anything that alters the footprint need approved plans. We arrange the drawings and handle the municipal submission so you are not chasing a draughtsman and the council yourself. Read our guide on when you need approved building plans in Cape Town.
One team on site, a running schedule, and someone you can phone. We protect the parts of the house you are still living in, keep the dust contained as far as is realistic, and tell you early if something behind a wall changes the plan — because it sometimes does.
We walk the job with you at the end and write down everything that still needs attention before the final payment. Nothing gets signed off until that list is clear. Our renovation handover checklist covers what to inspect.
Nobody can price a renovation properly without seeing the house, but you should still go into the first conversation with a rough sense of the numbers so you can tell whether a quote is sane. We publish honest cost breakdowns rather than making you fill in a form to see a figure:
Two things move a renovation budget more than anything else. The first is what you find once you open things up — rot, rusted lintels, old wiring, drains that were never laid properly. The second is changing your mind halfway through, because undoing finished work is always more expensive than deciding up front. Keep a contingency of around 10 to 15 percent aside; our guide on how much contingency to hold back explains why.
For more detail on bigger jobs, see what it costs to build a house in Cape Town in 2026, add a second storey, do a garage conversion, remove a load-bearing wall or replace a roof.
A single bathroom is usually two to three weeks. A kitchen runs three to five, depending on how long the cabinetry takes to come back. A whole-house renovation is typically three to six months, and an extension with council approval needs eight to twelve weeks added at the front for plans and permission before anyone lifts a shovel. Winter adds time to anything involving the roof or exterior. We go into more detail in our renovation timeline guide.
If you are changing the footprint, adding a storey, moving a load-bearing wall or converting a garage into a habitable room, yes. Replacing a kitchen, re-tiling a bathroom or repainting does not need plans. If you are unsure, ask before you start — retrospective approval is slower and more expensive than doing it in the right order.
Usually, yes. Most of our clients do. We seal off the work area, keep one bathroom and the kitchen usable for as long as possible, and plan the noisy demolition days so you know in advance. On a full-house strip-out it is often easier to move out for the first few weeks.
We stop, photograph it, and price it before continuing. You get a variation in writing and you decide. What we do not do is carry on and present it as a surprise on the final invoice.
Yes, and on Cape Town houses it usually has to come first. Tiling over a wall with rising damp or laying a new floor on a slab that is drawing moisture just hides the problem for a season. See our guides on rising damp and waterproofing costs.
Yes to both. We carry contractor’s liability cover and we come back if something we installed fails. Ask for the certificate at quote stage — any builder who cannot produce one should worry you.
Staged, against completed work, never a large deposit up front for an unstarted job. The schedule is written into the quote so you know exactly what triggers each payment, and the final amount is only released once the snag list is signed off.
We work from Fish Hoek across the Deep South — Noordhoek, Kommetjie, Simon’s Town, Muizenberg, Scarborough — through the Southern Suburbs including Constantia, Tokai, Bergvliet, Claremont, Wynberg and Rondebosch, out to the Atlantic Seaboard, and as far as Somerset West, Strand and Gordon’s Bay. See the full list on our areas we serve page.
Tell us what you are planning and we will come out, look at the house and put a proper itemised figure to it. Free, and there is no obligation to go ahead.
