Our House

We have been (patiently?) waiting to get into our own house since May, and finally the light can be seen at the end of the tunnel -- October 15 is the do-or-die deadline we've been given.  The family that had been living in it has moved out, and we've given a long list of repairs to the hospital to handle.  The house is very old, possibly one of the first batch of houses built in Kijabe (if house #31 is any indication, anyway) and needed some serious repairs.  We are eager to get in, but many people have told us that we should make sure all our requests are finalized before we move in, so that's just what we're doing.

The following photos will be the before-before photos.  These are the before any hospital repairs.  Our hope is that after the hospital has done their repairs and we move in, we'll do others like painting, fixing the gardens, and other "Mulandi touches". We just don't know what those might be yet.

 

So that's the outside of the house.  The previous family was kind enough to leave us a couple of big rose bushes, but we're hoping to dig out the rest of the stuff and plant a big beautiful garden of native flowers.  Of course, I have no idea what that is, but we'll learn.

Now, let me take you on a tour.  Proceed with caution. And one other word.  The family was actually in the process of moving out when we took these photos, so that is why some of the photos have things in them still.

These two photos comprise of one big room that is the living room (with fireplace) and dining room.  We hope to paint the fireplace to a white or different color.  The hospital has repainted the walls already and taken down the weird wood trim in the center of the walls.  

Kitchen, with minimal counter space:

Fortunately, the hospital has built us a new cabinet (where the red gas cylinder is) which adds a lot more counter space.  We hope that we'll have new white/grey tiles before moving in.

The "breakfast nook"

We already have a little table to go here, and since we won't get our dining room table until November, I imagine lots of time spent there!  The windows are small, so we're hoping to paint the walls in something bright and inviting to cheer the small space up.

Laundry Room:

The sinks are gone, and the pipes are, too.  We'll put our washing machine in the corner, and our fridge on the other corner since it is too big to fit in the kitchen.  :)  And, we hope the floor will change here, too.

I'll wrap this up now with some shots of the bathroom:

The pipes have all been torn out, but we're not really sure what is going to happen next :)  And the white tile is going to be replaced with a blue tile. The blue is darker than I would prefer, and probably won't match the things I picked up from Bed, Bath, and Beyond (or something like it) while I was home this summer.  But, if we wait to order tiles that we would want we may never get into the house! You learn to pick and choose your battles, and we'll hope that visitors can imagine everything matching.

And, the loo:

You are probably wondering the same thing I am:  How did anyone tolerate such a toilet situation?  I have not managed to find an answer to this!!  We believe that this toilet will be replaced and that there will be new, clean tile place 4 feet behind the toilet.  

I'm sure these photos don't leave you eager to visit us, but we promise that it will be much, much better by the time you come!  I'll end the tour here.  The three bedrooms remain: Master Bedroom, Guest/study, Guest/Nursery.  Photos will come some other time.

It is not an understatement to call this a "fixer-upper" is it?