Famous Cape Town landmark comes crashing down (no, not THAT one)

This past Sunday morning at 11:56am, a very familiar part of the Cape Town skyline was changed irrevocably when the 48-year old Athlone Cooling Towers came crashing down in a planned demolition.

Although not visible from The Green Room Gardens Self Catering Apartment, the towers were a famous landmark on the N2 Highway en route from Cape Town International Airport to the Cape Town CBD and Gardens, and were often referred to when giving directions.

Watch the video to see how it all unfolded in the blink of an eye:

Before and After (Part 2: Almost Finished)

We finally managed to finish the renovations at the apartment, almost a month after the end of the World Cup! Oh well, still in time for the summer holiday season, which is just around the corner.

Here are some pics of the renovated flat plus most of the furniture, sans decorations. As soon as I can get a hold of a camera with a wide-angle lens, I will post more pictures of the completely transformed, modern and relaxing Green Room Gardens - a far cry from the 70s-style, DIY disaster it was when I bought it.

This is the actual view!

Before and After (Part 1: Before)

Who'd have thought this scruffy-looking place (as depicted in the pictures we took before starting renovations) could ever amount to much? Especially when the work, which was supposed to take only 3 days to complete, was unnecessarily dragged out by our unscrupulous project manager to about 11 weeks in the end, completely obliterating my hopes to have it ready in time for the World Cup?

After lots of nail-biting and hair-pulling, it finally got done in the end, and although we missed the soccer crowd by about a mile, I'm certainly glad it doesn't look like this anymore:

Before Renovations 1

Before Renovations 2

Before Renovations 3

Before Renovations 4

Before Renovations 5

Before Renovations 6

Before Renovations 7