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.

 

[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:

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[ronski]

Feeling broke today - just spent a small fortune at Bagno Design buying the new bathroom ware. Fingers crossed it gives the desired effect.

 

[ronski]

Wow... just Wow!

Are you from Dubai btw? As I thought you had to be a citizen to buy property out there... I could be wrong though!

Also.. subbed!

Thanks! I am from the UK mate. I have been living here for over 7 years now. Expatriates are able to buy in certain designated Free Zone areas such as Dubai Marina, Jumeriah Lake Towers, Arabian Ranches, Lakes, Meadows, Springs etc

Other areas purchases are only possible if you are a GCC citizen otherwise in those areas one can only rent.

 

[ronski]

One observation though; Is it just me or does the garage look rather narrow? For a new out of town home i would have expected it big enough to easily fit 2 large cars, but that looks like it would be tight?

Good spot - the design of the villa has a "car porch" which is wide enough for one car and behind that there is a double garage. Bit of a design flaw if you are asking me but it looks nice.

In reality the gap between the car porch and the garage is a space long enough for a car. The previous villa owners put a shade sail over this space effectively allowing for four cars off road (two in the garage, one under the shade sail and one under the car porch)

 

[ronski]

Neither had I - to be honest it would have been far more practical to have two cars under the car port....

 

[ronski]

The actual purchase price vs asking price is usually within 3-5% if my experience is anything to go by. At the moment with the house prices on the rise in Dubai at a fast rate it is quite often for properties to go at asking price or even slightly more....

 

[ronski]

See you have a lot of stone, small windows and lots of overhangs / brise soleil, I assume it's quite cool.

Do you have A/C? is there a need?

It is a cool house but AC is an absolute must in Dubai. The houses come with it built in and ducted around the house. It was quite interesting removing the false ceiling in the study it revealed that the ducting had not been fully connected leaving cold air to blow into the void.

As a result i will be having as much of the AC system over hauled as possible including new radiators on the roof and new actuators throughout. Not cheap but its the first thing on my list.

The last thing anyone needs is your AC to pack up in the middle of the summer. Unbelievably uncomfortable.

 

[ronski]

Yep filters will be done and a complete AC service on finishing up the works.

 

[ronski]

I am in IT mate and really enjoying it.

 

[ronski]

Probably should've guessed what with your server cabinet . My dad's in civil engineering (highways) hence Abu Dhabi as a base for a load of work all over the Middle East.

You out there with the family or on your own?

My wife and I and our 2 small dogs

Thanks for all the kind comments guys. I was down at site today and the tile removal is basically done save one small area. And the first coats of paints are going on the walls. Now with the New Year break I hope to see them cracking on with the floor tiles while we await delivery of the bathroom ware.

 

[ronski]

Do you have solar panels on the roof or any plans to fit them?

Sadly the developer did not put them in as standard. I will have an investigation when I look to the exterior landscaping particularly for any water heaters I might need.

 

[ronski]

I popped down to the villa this morning and not much has been going on as they only worked a couple of days in between Christmas and are now only due to re-start work this Sunday.

The good news is that 95% of the floor tiles have been removed - here are the last few remaining tiles:

The data cabling in the villa is now also complete withe second 24 Port switch now installed. This is great as it now effectively allows any one point to be connected to any other point allowing great flexibility. The blue box on the bottom of the cabinet is the Fibre Modem which the local service provider uses for TV/Internet and Phone services.

I also met with the builder and I am now going to have the final 2 ensuite bathrooms re-tiled and refreshed as it makes sense to do it at this point. So I have been out shopping again for an incremental tile order as well as the rest of the bathroom ware. At the same time we will replace all the electrical water heaters as a number of them are leaking and starting to show their age.

On top of this I have also brought new light switches and sockets for the whole house. I have gone for Schneider Electric Ultimate Range to give a matching look for switches and socket. They look reasonably tidy and are from a local hardware store giving me flexibility if I need any extras or need to exchange any in the future. Not too expensive per piece but when buying for a whole house is soon adds up

Once the bathrooms are finalised I will turn my thoughts to the kitchen...

 

[ronski]

Be under no illusion, a normal IT position wouldn't buy a Villa like that, you'd be in a high rise condo in Dubai with most normal positions. Property is as expensive out there as it is in the home counties of England

Absolutely right. I started off in a high rise condo and caught a break with a really high cash offer. Mind you I had to ride out the crash which at one point had me at minus 25% equity. Not pretty at the time.