(this post was written in 2021… You will notice that a lot has changed since)

Inala, exala… That’s what I have been telling myself this whole time since we made a move to continue putting our house together. Ok lets take a few steps back. The year was 2020 and it was the literal turn of the decade and we had just put blood, sweat and a whole lot of money to try make the house we were moving into to be somewhat habitable…because bruh!

You see somewhere at the end of 2018 B got a job that sent him to a small town in Kitui County. The place was so remote that at the time of visiting the place there was no tarmacked road. Yes its 2018 and some places in this country still hadn’t experienced tarmac roads. He was offered a house by the hospital which was convenient but the state of the house was depressing. There was hardly any storage space, the drainage was a mess and the freaking red ochre floors that apparently are still a thing in 2021! So we spent the whole of 2019 hoping around the country travelling running around the country running away from the misery that was the living space of the house… but toward the end of the year, we took our savings and took the plunge. There was so much to be done and to-date I am so impressed by how much we had in savings. There was so much to do, from tiling the bathroom, to creating a counter for the kitchen, to changing taps and a paint job. Because we were rookies, we got overcharged and the paint job was shit. The painter did such a horrible job which got us kind of demotivated, so I decided that this house would be our gathering space just because trying to make it work would cost us more and it was sucking the life out of me.

The grand plan was to transition from B’s initial internship furniture (I didn’t have any because I had never lived alone) to our own taste with the least mistakes. We did not want any furniture clutter seeing that we came from two very cluttered households. So with the state of the house, we moved in beginning of 2020 with the hopes that we would finish furnishing the house by the end of the year. We got a new bed in February which was an upgrade for the bed that was literally being held together by a rope and had broken more times than we cared to count. I got inspiration from Pinterest and asked Benson to make it. He did a fantastic job at it actually. I should mention that the challenge we have living outside Nairobi is not getting skilled labor so we often have to ship things in which is quite pricey. Transporting the bed and a few pillows and side stools cost me almost five thousand shillings.

We then had to take 5 because life and the uncertainty of the pandemic. So we took up a small project. We got a shelf made because I needed extra storage in my little office space. thing is, the shelf is pretty sexy but it does have some functional woes. I thought of doing a metal frame but for some reason went with wood and boy doesn’t it squeak. I may re-do this possibly next year but for now it holds our bits and bobs and its functional. We also swapped B’s desk for a desk that could fit us both. Like I said earlier, finding skilled workmanship is a gap that exists and just like the shelf this too has functional mishaps but it works for now. We are still searching for chairs that will complement the space.

Then quite impulsively (though it was still in the plan) we went to Kitui one day and put a deposit on a fridge. It actually made us broke, but it was the end of the month. Naivas has this arrangement where you can deposit money for an item and clear the balance within three months and get it delivered to you. Which is what we did, cleared the balance the next week. We settled for a 100W fridge from Samsung. Its an excellent size for two of us, has a cool wall which keeps the fridge cooler in the case of a power outage, which I should highlight, were a common occurrence.

2020 flew by, and 2021 came round. Randomly in Nairobi on my birthday we walked into Dr. Mattress in one of our window shopping escapades. We just wanted to check out their mattresses do that we can plan to get one. Well, we walked out having made a deposit for a mattress. They were having a 25% sale on all mattresses and after doing the math, we figured the offer was too good to pass up. Just like the fridge, we cleared the balance and on one fine Wednesday afternoon, they delivered the mattress to our door. (of course after paying an arm and a leg for the delivery). Just like that, the room was coming together. We will talk about the nitty gritties of beddings later,

A few weeks ago, B sent me a post from Dr. Mattress ‘s Instagram. It was a couch. We had been having discussions about the couch we wanted and has scrolled through myriads of furniture pages and ads and visited quite a few shops. They were either not giving or way above our budget. We had agreed that we needed to get a couch by the end of the year but didn’t have the slightest clue. SO this post was such a welcome suggestion. We always wanted a n L shaped sofa and as you guessed it, they were having a sale. Of course we got ourselves to the nearest Dr. Mattress which was in Mombasa. They didn’t have the L seat, but they had another sofa which the minute we sat on.. we knew it was the one. You know how people describe their lovers or wedding dresses, like the minute the saw them, they knew he/she/ they were the one? That’s how I felt seating on the couch. What’s more? its a sofa bed…it checks the free-from-clutter checklist. But we still needed to see the L sofa, so we did that two days ago in Sarit Centre. It wasn’t it, so we settled for the sofa bed.. and as you guessed it, paid the deposit.

I am so excited and cant wait for it to make way to the house. Yoh! we are getting a freaking couch!!! There are still fundamental pieces of the living room (and other rooms) missing as well, and other pieces that need to be re-done, but I am super happy with the progress. I am super glad that I get to make these transitions with B, you should see us do the dance every time we make a deposit. Guys, I am becoming a big girl with my own house!!