Joy!

Work has begun! Albeit in the prep stages, but it has begun. The first step is to clear out some land for either the septic tank or the underground water storage tank...we haven't decided which one it will be, but it will be one of them.
We are so glad that at least something is happening! More later.

Eliud in the 'pit', already 3 or 4 feet

Progress

This week we need to buy stones...yes stones! This is because we need them dressed and dressing can take a while. If we are to stick to our January commitment to start building, the stones come in latest next week, especially to take care of the delays brought in by the Christmas and new year holidays.
We have pretty much decided on the colour of stone we are looking out for and it should be 'fun' to visit a few quarries to see if they have it! Ha! This is beginning to take shape!

Finally!

The most important bit of getting approvals to build is here! Yes! Our plans were approved yesterday and now all that remains is really for us to determine the pace of our building. We certainly need to gather the monies needed and by January, we should start doing the main house.

In the meantime, we work on basics such as the septic tank, a site house and possible an outdoor toilet.
The journey has just begun!

Progress

It's been a little quiet but we are making steady progress. The structural engineer completed his drawings a week ago and we had them submitted to the council, and were asked to wait for 14 days till they are approved. Apparently this is only the first stage of approval and only God knows when we can get to the final stages.


In true woman style, I have already began looking around for interior decor ideas. The structure is complete in my mind and I am now working the color and decor. My good husband can't get over this.
Well, this is my way of ensuring that I am still excited about it, in spite of all the delays by various councils. It's my one way of remaining sane!

Anyway, the drawing comes back to Mavoko on the 15th. I need to say 'should come back'. Let's wait and see...

Killer

This waiting is killing me. No word from the architect about the plans. Yes I trust him, but it's taking too long and I really can't wait to start construction...

The house before my very eyes

I am very excited. We visited the architect hopefully for the last time before we have a structural engineer's plan and he surprised us with lovely photos of how our house is expected to look like ( the rear view is above).





 This was the first time the construction began to look real! Right there...in front of my eyes!

I am hoping that we can make it look like this, or even better!

Now what we need is wait for the structural engineer's plan and then we can launch it at the Municipal  offices and hopefully in three weeks, we will have an approved plan.






We have to pray that all goes well, as the things we have heard about Mavoko Municipal Council are not all positive.
I shall be here talk about it though!

Greatest regret

One of my greatest regrets right now is that I didn't start this blog as soon as we decided we wanted to put up a house. I will try though assume I did. Of course the first thing to do is buy a nice piece of land- mine is a small quarter acre piece about 10-15KM from Nairobi City Centre but only about 5 Kilometers from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

From our house, we can see planes land and take off and hopefully we can capture this in the construction. We want many things for our house. We want minimal walls, plenty of light and we need to make sure that the building is as environment friendly as possible, without compromising security. Unfortunately in this part of the world, as with many others, security is big concern- we might want huge sliding windows, with no security bars, but you don't want to find half of your stuff missing, after a long day at work

Out for lunch...more next time