'You say, Goodbye and I say, Hello!'

Ok. I have to admit I’ve been putting this off for a couple of reasons: 

1) I think it’s going to be a lengthy post (I wound up breaking it up into 3 posts! See, I told you it would be long.) and 

2) hubby and I couldn't agree on exact changes to make. We’re getting closer, though.

Our sticking point is the verandah to what’s the actual front door, but not used as such. Since parking is on the side and the kitchen entry is right there, everyone just walks the few feet to that door instead of walking up the drive and around the corner from where they parked.

It’s more where the askaris (guard/yard man) hang out to grab a bit of shade, along with the guard dog. (Yes, we need both since the houses here are not wired with a security alarm system. And even if they were, don’t know if the intermittent electricity could sustain them.) 

This is Difasi, the day askari/gardener.  The dog's name is Kibu or Gift. We have three guards...We can't work them 24/7 you know! One is there during the day, Enoch is there during the weekend and moonlights at other teammates compounds during the week and Geoffrey, who is a student, works in the evenings.

I want to knock out that blue wall behind the askari (there we go with the knocking out walls business again) to enlarge the dining room. But he (husband that is, not askari) wants to keep it as a place to sip his tea, look at the birds, grab a bit of the outdoors, etc.

So, since this is my blog, I’ve decided to show it the way I’d like it.

Ok, now, I’ll give you the floor plan of the ‘Big House As Is' so you can understand the references I give.

This is the first impression you get of our compound.

Yikes!! Can’t wait to talk to the landlord about painting these walls! 
Probably a tan color to camouflage the rain streaks and to neutralize the diamonds and the brick pillars. The pillars aren’t so bad, but why not spiff them up, too?

And what color to paint the dingy grey metal gates, you ask?

Why brilliant turquoise of course! 

For three reasons: 

1) because it’s such a happy bright color that will make giving directions easy (just look for the turquoise gate, see?), 

2) it will match our daughter’s front door and make me think of her and 

3) I’m toying with the idea of calling the guest house ‘The Blue Turaco’ after the ‘Great Blue Turaco’ that lives in Uganda and other countries in East Africa.

Though, it looks like we may be stuck with, "Oh, you mean the 'Old Mission School" ', since that’s what everybody keeps calling it, LOL.

Even though the entrance into compound is not that great, the exiting is pretty to see.

But we don’t want people to be glad to be leaving, so we need to work on that!

I don’t think the landlord will mind the color I’ve chosen for the gate since this is the color he painted the entrance by the kitchen and is the color of the trim all over the outside of the house.

This is the true ‘entry door’ into the house. 

Don’t you just love these old wooden doors and screens? We need to have the door on the left shaved a bit so it will push all the way back against the wall to make the entrance seem more inviting and of course do something about the pitted cement, maybe tile?

I would love to do something like this over the two openings on either side of that brick column and the garage. Doesn’t that seem so much more inviting?

That's the end of this post. Like always, we’ll show you the changes and progress we make.

Thanks for stopping by.