Keith Interiors Ltd CEO Keith Walumbe during an interview at Greenvale Apartments, Nairobi on June 9, 2023.
| Boniface Bogita | Nation Media GroupLifestyle
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Reformed casanova Keith Walumbe raking millions from interior design
Growing up in poverty can be punishing and Keith Walumbe understood what it meant. That’s why when he thought he had made a fortune, he lived on the fast lane— women and alcohol dominated his life. Then he went broke. And not just once.
“Imagine being raised in a poor, polygamous family back in the village where your father has 17 children, and you’re almost the last born,” Walumbe remarks.
We are sitting in the gazebo a few yards away from his delicately furnished office in the affluent suburbs of Kileleshwa, Nairobi. Sharply dressed, he smells of a sweet Arab scent even from a stone throw.
“Don’t ask me the name (of the cologne) because I don’t remember, but I got it while on a trip to Dubai. I am a collector, I have over 40 different scents, anything I’m told smells nice, I buy,” he says.
The 40-year-old is the Director of Keith Interiors and boasts of high-profile clientele. One of his earliest achievements was designing the interiors of the famous Samba Club in the city centre. He was an apprentice then.
“In my 15 years of practice, I have been lucky to execute house projects for eminent individuals,” he says, adding that top government officials and business magnates are listed as his clients.
Besides individuals Keith’s workmanship is also embedded on notable establishment such as Simba Casino, the Care International Offices, market Research firm TNS RMS East Africa offices, among others.
“I also designed Mr Armstrong Kasuku’s palatial home and hotel in Makadara. He owns the popular Garden Square Bar and Restaurant (recently demolished),”
Keith Interiors
From this network, Walumbe says he has been able to create a wider spectrum of clientele through referrals, thanks to the finesse of his designs.
But to get to the top, Walumbe says he has had to false start countless times. With the mistakes, came lessons.
“Right now, Keith Interiors is at a better place than it was five years ago, we are making good turnovers running into millions. I have had to close shop several times and start all over again. I have made so many mistakes along the way but as a business man I am wiser and more exposed than I was in my 20s and 30s,” he offers.
Walumbe blames his business mistakes on his poor background and lack of exposure.
“It was tough growing up in the village bearing in mind how many siblings we were and despite my parents being primary school teachers, the income wasn’t enough to cater for the 17 children. The only reason I wanted to become an Interior designer was to escape poverty, it later transformed to a passion,”
He recalls how his architect uncle used to visit with his family from Nairobi during holidays, and their small Lutoni village in Bungoma would come to a standstill.
“He was a man of means and was always flashy whenever he visited. I used to admire and crave their life. I craved city life, so I vowed to become an architect. Unfortunately I didn’t earn enough cluster points for it, so I settled for interior design,” he explained.
Starting out, interior designing was relatively a niche in the country with scarce expertise.
As an intern at Classic Mouldings in Nairobi, which was the best Interior design company at the time, he impressed the bosses, who absorbed and paid him Sh10, 000 a month back in 2007.
After two years, he was poached by a startup firm, which offered him a Sh60,000 salary, but only worked for two months and quit to become a freelancer.
“My vision and that of the startup CEO didn’t align, so I quit. Besides, I had begun building a clientele of my own; those who could not afford company rates gave me side gigs,” said the designer.
It’s now about 2009 and Walumbe is making around Sh250, 000 a month.
Ghosts of poverty
Then the indulgence spirit entered him. A blend of naivety and desire to exorcise the ghosts of poverty nudged him into the high-class city life he had yearned for; good food, sharp dressing, party and all that comes with it. Bevy of beauties were never too far.
“For a moment, I thought I was winning and before I could blink, I went broke. The projects came tumbling and I wasn’t getting any new jobs. At the time I had registered my Keith Interiors Company. I had to close my office and send the few interns I had to help run the business home. It was time to recharge,” he recalls.
Walumbe had chosen to combine the camaraderie of city life with his pursuit of a Master’s degree in project management, and was now paying the price.
For about two years, Walumbe struggled to find meaningful jobs and at some point defaulted on his house rent.
“Just when I was about to be kicked out of my house, I received a call from one client I had consulted for. He says he admires my progress and hires me as a lead designer for two major projects, one in Karen and another in Runda, a huge team of 100 people, from contractors, designers to the cleaners. I was in my late 20s and this was a game changer, but it didn’t essentially change my life except that I bought my first car, a Nissan Presea, in cash,” he says.
Now making in excess of over Sh300,000 a month from the two projects, Keith says his thirst to live on the fast lane crept back, this time believing he was smart enough to balance the scales. Another mistake!
“I didn’t foresee a scenario where these projects would come to an end. I combined work with leisure, drinking the finest whiskeys in this country. I was a Casanova. I thought I was rich, making about Sh100, 000 a week for almost a year. I was excited with life,” he says.
When the projects ended it wasn’t long before he was grounded again. For about a year, life was sour and Walumbe contemplated going back to the village, but the ghosts of poverty quickly jostled him to build a resolve to fight on in the city.
To make it work, Keith decided not to look for mega projects but to downgrade his services.
“I had to survive, so I sought out designers who were doing well in the market and became their draftsman and they would pay me between Sh2, 000 to Sh5, 000. I would then save all this money and channel it all to paying my Sh15, 000 rent in Lang’ata, which was then the creamiest estate in Nairobi,” he recalls.
Back to the grind as a freelancer, Walumbe spent most of his time in the cybercafé drafting, having lost his laptop as a result of an auction.
“One day while in the cybercafe someone walked past me and noticed what I was doing, that’s how I ended up designing the famous Samba club in the CBD. I actually got a number of clients from the cyber, which had now become my office,” he says.
On one particular day while going about his business at the cyber which at the time was situated on the ground floor of Kenya Cinema, Keith received a call from an old client he designed his house when I worked at Classic Mouldings.
“He said he had been looking for me, he had been appointed the new general manager at a startup then and had a tender to do veterinary shops around the country,” he says.
With a debrief of what was expected, Walumbe was asked to do a simple design of the shops.
“From nowhere, they commissioned me to do three shops in Kitengela, Garissa and Eldoret and my problems ended that day because each shop fetched Sh700, 000 in terms of supply and installation, meaning I made Sh70, 000 commission from each,” he says.
At this very moment, everything changed for the better and Walumbe has never looked back.
Wiser and more experienced, he bagged more jobs and even reopened his company. So far, he has 100 employees across towns where he has been executing various projects; Kisii, Kakamega, Mombasa and Nairobi.
As far as his work is concerned Walumbe advices: “Majority of Kenyans always make the mistake of engaging an interior designer at the tail end of construction. The best time to rope in a designer is at the foundation level. Most architects do their work based on how the shell and form of the construction would be without paying attention to the functionality and aesthetics inside. The nitty gritty of the interiors are important elements of any construction and that’s why you need to have a designer from the beginning.”
As Walumbe escorts me to the gate after an hour of conversing, I ask if at 40 he is married.
Keith takes a pose, exhales heavily and with an affiliative smile, he gives an account of his failed marriage.
On November 28, 2015, Keith married Jeddidah at a colorful wedding in Nairobi and jetted to Dubai for honeymoon. Both affairs cost him about Sh3.5 million, only for the union to hit a snag in 2017 over irreconcilable differences.
