"I am the proud owner of a small beautiful cottage in a pristine locale surrounded by nature, laden with all your daily needs of cool clean water, sunshine, fresh fruits and traditional foods. When the world around me goes all chaotic, this is the place where I seek refuge.
This cottage might as well be located in any of the following exotic places- Takaungu, Lamu, Kwale, Mathews Ranges, Kesses, Naivasha, Taita Hills, Nanyuki, Kikambala, Vipingo, Aberdares, Happy Valley, Nyambene Hills, Chyulus, Mfangano Islands, Isinya, or a thousand other such places in any direction you take in Kenya.
I could have moved in sooner, but I especially wish to turn the cottage into my retirement home. I have therefore started planning how I will put it up in the next five years.
This cottage is found in my dreams, but the view from is worth dying for."
In 2008 I wrote the above in a post here. Having set a target of 5 years to get that dream cottage, its now 8 years since but the good news is that the cottage is almost done!
It has been a long journey and I wish to share it with you in one of my longest posts yet.
Welcome to the journey........
It started in 2009 when I got together with three friends and bought a piece of land near the shores of Elementaita. We did not have any specific plans at the time, but I vaguely had a proposal running in my head. My proposal was to bring together about 10 friends and building holiday homes collectively in some exotic locales of Kenya. I had in mind places like Naivasha, Coast, Mt. Kenya, Mara or Amboseli.
I imagined that ten families pooling resources would make life so easy and sooner than later the happy ten would be moving to their 2nd, 3rd, 4th holiday homes. They would timeshare and sell their homes to others when not in use. It was a brilliant idea but no takers. I made numerous pitches to friends but all wanted to get their own pieces of land.
So I decided to go alone and started planning my cottage. I did not lack for inspiration. Because money was tight, I started planning a two bedroom cottage. Many drafts were done and trashed.
In January 2015, I made a resolve to dedicate the next 8 months to building a getaway cottage in Elementaita. I did not need a project plan. I knew what needed to be done. My land was in a remote area with a lot of pastoralism and a fence was the first step of my journey.
Having done my own concrete fencing posts in an earlier projects, I had 6 moulds and therefore needed to add 4 more so that I can make at least 10 fencing posts everyday.
I decided to do the fencing posts on site. A gracious neighbour allowed me to use his compound for security. I needed a caretaker of fundi to work on the post and take care of the land after fencing. Raymond was recruited as a casual to work on the posts for ten days.
On 17th January, I went to Mwariki area of Nakuru Pipeline area to buy sand from the local mines. I needed to buy quarter inch ballast, sand, cement and Y8 rebars.
Materials were delivered
There are the ten moulds with a height of 7ft.
Training work started in earnest
The results
Finished, cured and ready for duty Sir!
