The 3-bedroom bungalow is the default Kenyan family house, and most of what is written about it is written by people selling one. This is written from a plan we publish in full: 145.6 m², hip roof at 22°, master ensuite, open kitchen-dining, front verandah, with a bill of quantities priced against it.
What it costs to build
Our published band for that house is KES 5.21M – 6.63M. That is roughly KES 36,000 – 46,000 per square metre, and it is derived from the priced BoQ for that specific drawing rather than from a rate someone remembers hearing.
Two honest caveats. It excludes land, and it excludes the things that are not the house — perimeter wall, gate, water connection, power drop, landscaping. Those are real money and they are not in a building's square-metre rate, which is why a build so often costs more than the number people quote each other.
The three layouts, and who each suits
- Master ensuite plus a shared bathroomThe common arrangement and the one our plan uses. One ensuite for the main bedroom, one bathroom serving the other two. Cheapest of the three in plumbing runs, and it is the layout most families actually live in.
- All bedrooms ensuiteThree ensuites. It suits a household of adults, or a house that will take long-staying guests. It costs more in plumbing and it costs floor area — three bathrooms take space the bedrooms would otherwise have.
- Master ensuite, shared bathroom, plus a guest WCThe best-mannered version if you entertain, because visitors never walk down the bedroom corridor. A guest WC is small and it changes how the public half of the house behaves.
What it needs from the plot
A bungalow spends ground. At 145.6 m² of floor, all of it on the ground, the entire figure counts against your coverage limit — 60% in Nairobi, 50% in Kiambu and Kajiado. On a standard eighth-acre of about 464 m² that is comfortable, but it is the constraint to check first.
Then take off the driveway, the 3 m septic standoff from every boundary, and the setback strips. On an eighth-acre a 3-bedroom bungalow leaves a usable but finite garden; stretch to four bedrooms on one level and the yard begins to disappear. Going up is how you buy the ground back.
The dimensions worth checking on any plan
Kenyan drawings are dimensioned in millimetres — 3 600 means 3.6 m. When you look at a plan, check these before you look at anything else.
- Room areas against rooms you knowEvery labelled area is comparable to a room you have already lived in. If a bedroom is labelled smaller than the one you measured this morning, believe the number, not the drawing's impression.
- Bedrooms against the 7.5 m² floorThat is the minimum habitable bedroom area in our code packs, from NCA Residential Guidelines §H.5. It is a legal floor and a poor target — a bedroom drawn near it will take a bed and little else.
- Ceiling height2 400 mm clear is the minimum for habitable rooms. Anything less is not a design choice, it is a rejection.
- How you reach each roomBedrooms should open off a hall, never through another bedroom. Plans that fail this pass every dimensional check and are still unpleasant to live in.
Buying a plan versus briefing one
A stock 3-bedroom bungalow plan was drawn for a plot that is not yours, with an orientation that is not yours and a gate somewhere else. It can be adapted, and adapting it is often most of the cost of drawing a new one — except the adaptation happens on site, in block and mortar, by whoever is holding the trowel.
The alternative is to start from your boundaries. Same money, in our case from KES 3,500 for a dimensioned floor-plan pack, and the drawing knows where your sun comes from.