Designs by Soul: A day in the life of...me!

Im currently in Zambia on the Lower Zambezi working on the interiors refurbishment of Kanyemba Lodge, Im here for this month - this is pretty much a typical day for me here.....hectic but loving being so creative and using all the local resources and talents in my designing

I started my day with painting a design on the bathroom walls in the chalets

I asked 2 fishermen to use their bamboo fishing basket weaving and we made a large chandelier weaved with natural sisal and handmade banana string

Hanging it - Richard had to climb the rafters!

Voila!

Then the fishermen are back to work weaving - this time we have started a design I have in mind for some wall art pieces...will show finished pieces in next post

Then onto tailoring - here we're making some wall art pieces I have designed using some scraps of materials and some sisal string

And the finished piece...going to hang with another similar one in one of the chalets

Kanyemba has their own carpentry workshop so been having a field-day designing pieces for the lodge - below a carver is working on some small drinks stools for the chalets

Finished carving and now ready for sanding...

I was also checking out the finished samples of the new bedside table and bedside lamp base for the rooms

And whilst there working on some wall art pieces for the bedrooms - each room is going to have different designs - below is using some sunbleached branches from a fallen tree we collected from a sandbank on the river. Then I weaved sisal string designs through the wood

And we just got some lamp bases from Lusaka - took them to a traditional woodturner, LOVE the rotten wood one in the middle below...going to combine with a handwoven banana string lampshade...

We also received our order of handwoven grass mats for the bedroom floors from local town, Kafue, LOVE these and going to be buying some to take back to Cape Town