Dubai Villa Renovation

[ronski]

Having recently brought a villa in Dubai I thought I might up a log here of the work that I am going to have done to the place.

Here is the villa - it is located in Terranova, Arabian Ranches

and here is the rear of the house

the previous owner put in a decent sized and very handy shed at the side of the villa:

Also here is the floor plan of the villa (my villa is actually a mirror image of this plan but it gives a good idea of the layout)

There are a number of things that we wish to do to the place prior to moving in these are:

1. Cat 6 cabling throughout
2. Re-tile all floors
3. New master bathroom, new powder room and new shared bathroom
4. All walls repainted
5. Kitchen refresh and addition of an island
6. All doors and door frames painted white
7. Small extension to the family room to the edge of the patio giving about 2.5ft of extra length to the room
8. Close up the door from the dining room to the pantry and relocate this door upstairs to create a 2 room master suites - the bedroom next to the master will become a dressing room
9. Remove the en-suite bathroom in the downstairs bedroom that will become the study/home office
10. LED down lighters in all reception rooms

Phew - its a lot and the builder thinks it will be about 10 weeks to get it all done.

 

[James_N]

Now that looks bloody awesome

Looking forward to seeing some interior pics when you have everything sorted!

 

[ronski]

First thing that I have had done is to have the villa re-cabled with Cat 6. When the villas were originally built Cat 5 was run around the house for delivery of phone, internet and tv. One of the issues was that it was not really built with home networking in mind. So I found a structured cabling company to come over and re-pull Cat 6, put new termination points, fit a cabinet, put new patch panels and install a switch. They even punched through the walls in a couple of specific places and installed weatherproof boxes. I might use these for Access Points or security cameras at a future point in time as the switch has power over ethernet capability.

Here is the original "patch panel" cabinet

Some of the old cables

New cable going in

Exterior termination point in weatherproof box:

New Cabinet, patch panels and HP Switch (will be installing a second switch in a week or so)

I am so happy to have had this done - something I have always wanted to previously had to make do with a combination of powerlines and wifi extenders. Not really ideal for getting HD movies around the house. I am hoping that is now a thing of the past.

 

[ronski]

Now that looks bloody awesome

Looking forward to seeing some interior pics when you have everything sorted!

I can't wait either!

 

[ronski]

The floor tiles are the biggest single spend on the villa refurb if you include the labour cost to remove the old tiles, buy the tiles and have them laid.

So in choosing the tiles it was something that we looked at for several months but eventually you have to pull the trigger and choose something.

We elected to buy locally and we chose a tile called Paradox Grey and 60x60cm tiles:

http://www.rakceramics.com/paradox-gp.php

Here is the 220sq meters being delivered (all 153 boxes!)

We put down a few of the tiles in the lounge to get a feeling for the look:

It felt great to finally be able to make start on the flooring.

 

[ronski]

The small building works are well underway.

The doorway from the pantry to the dining room is bricked up:

The ensuite in the downstairs bedroom is gone and the tiles are off the floors in that room:

Kitchen before:

Kitchen base units removed and electrics for island being prepared ready for tiling:

All internal doors removed, waiting to be taken away to be re-sprayed white

Tiles coming off the dining room floor:

Render going on the walls of the new study:

 

[ronski]

Popped by on Christmas day to see that the first bedroom had been tiled:

and the ensuite:

and a coat of paint on the walls:

One room done (aside from skirting) only about 9 more to be tiled!

The new study is looking very good now that is has been opened up:

 

[SB118]

Looks fantastic.

 

[Cosimo]

This is going to look great when finished.

Subscribed.

 

[ronski]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I popped over this afternoon and the guys have been cracking on.

All floor tiles are now removed from the ground floor - here is the lounge:

and they are not far from finishing off removing the tiles from upstairs. Here is one of the bedrooms:

It was so loud and dusty up there I could not stay there for too long but at the rate they are going they will soon have all these tiles off in the next day or so.

There is one poor guy whose job is to bag all of these broken tiles up and out them nicely outside:

Roll on the new year and laying of the floor tiles in earnest.

 

[bsoltan]

Looks like a very nice build and project. Got any pics before the work started?

Surprised taking the toilet out of the study.

What's the garden like?

 

[ronski]

I don't have any to hand - but I can get some from the builder.

The study toilet again was a thought long and hard - but in the end I valued the functional space and there are two other toilets on the ground floor.

As for the garden there really isn't much to see as it is all hard landscaped:

and

and

The next phase will be the landscape - but that is going to be next summer.

 

[Nightglow]

Very impressive, you seem to have some very good trades doing the work,everything looks well finished, even the demolition & building all looks rather tidy, compare to sites over here.

 

[Duke]

Very tidy, subscribing to thread

 

[Hotwired]

Very impressive, you seem to have some very good trades doing the work,everything looks well finished, even the demolition & building all looks rather tidy, compare to sites over here.

You can't generalise a whole trade.

Had a chap and his brother do 2 weeks of work on bathrooms at short notice, very tidy work, all their sub contractors were good. Cleaned up properly when they were done.

Generally had a good attitude to their work and main guy refused to expand his business because in his mind it was his name on the business and he could only guarantee a good job would be done if he personally had done it.

Most of his business is word of mouth and he's got a 2-3 month wait usually.

And no doubt we've all seen rogue builder shows too.

 

[Nightglow]

Generally had a good attitude to their work and main guy refused to expand his business because in his mind it was his name on the business and he could only guarantee a good job would be done if he personally had done it.

Very wise.

One thing that get me angry, very angry is untidy sites, whether poor storage of materials, or jobs were your doing demolition, & they leave piles of old timber with nails sticking out, & many other things, I always use to cleared up at the end of a day,a clean site is usually a safe site.

 

[booyaka]

nice - will look awesome when finished.

 

[Caged]

Very wise.

One thing that get me angry, very angry is untidy sites, whether poor storage of materials, or jobs were your doing demolition, & they leave piles of old timber with nails sticking out, & many other things, I always use to cleared up at the end of a day,a clean site is usually a safe site.

You easily save the time spent tidying up just because you don't have to look high and low for tools or fixings etc. The fact that you also save money by not having to store materials precariously next to a pile of rubble where they get damaged is an added bonus.

I helped a mate out on a house renovation a few months back and every time we'd turn up the place looked like a bomb site. He finally got the message that a tidy workplace was essential when he was trying to carry a toilet backwards through this obstacle course and knocked over a stack of plasterboard.

 

[Maccapacca]

Labour is a tiny proportion of the cost in Dubai, they flood sites with labour even if they are working un economically as the cost is so low, just to see a tidy site and or a customer seeing work progressing.

Totally different attitude to here.

 

[Hostile-17]

great thread, villa looks really good with the work done so far

Sub'd