We design villa interiors and villa renovations across Dubai. That covers a new villa you have just taken the keys to, and a full renovation of a home you live in now. We draw it in enough detail for a contractor to price and build. We then stay on site through the work.
- 2021Designing in Dubai since
- 10Designers in the studio
- 4 weeksSurvey to a complete drawing set
Tell us about your villa
Gallery
Room by room
Most villa budgets go over for the same reason. The drawings did not go far enough, so choices got made on site with the workers waiting. That always costs more. A villa is eight design problems, not one, and every room asks different questions.
Majlis
How deep the seating around the walls needs to be, and the route guests take in. Where the screen or partition goes. Drawn so guests never cut through the family rooms on the way in.
Living and family rooms
Where the seating goes, measured against what you see as you walk in. Then the recessed strips in the ceiling, the curtain tracks, and the sockets that belong in the floor rather than the wall.
Kitchen
The space built for each appliance. How far the island top sticks out, so you can sit under it with room for your legs. Where the extractor duct runs out through the outside wall. And whether the show kitchen and the working kitchen are two separate rooms.
Master suite
Headboard width, sockets and light switches beside the bed, and a drawing of every wardrobe front. Then which way each door opens between bedroom, dressing room and bathroom, so they do not hit each other.
Bathrooms
Where each stone slab starts and stops, and the slope of the floor towards the drain. What holds the glass screen up, and the layers under the tiles that keep water out of the structure. These get decided before tiling starts, because they cannot be changed after.
Children's and guest rooms
Shelf and rail heights a child can reach, where a desk fits as they grow, and finishes that survive them. Guest rooms get different fittings, because they are empty most of the year.
Entrance and stair
What you see first when the door opens. Which way the floor tiles run, and where any floor pattern is centred. Then what holds the stair railing up, and the lighting that makes the stair visible at night.
Terrace and pool surround
Shade structures, deck levels and the slope that drains them. Where the pool pump and filters sit. And the surface temperature of every material you walk on barefoot in July.
Work
Across Jumeirah Islands, Emirates Hills, Dubai Hills Estate, Discovery Dunes and Dubai South. Jumeirah Park, Palm Jumeirah, Arabian Ranches, Al Barari, Damac Hills, Tilal Al Ghaf and District One are the other communities we cover.
Process
0104
Pre-concept
Week 1
We visit and measure the villa, then write down what you want. Who lives in the house, how the majlis is used, what we keep and what we take out.
You receiveA measured survey of the villa as it stands, and a written brief we both agree before anything is drawn.
Budget
A villa renovation has no standard price, so we do not publish a price list.
The size of the villa
The obvious one, but the cost does not simply double when the villa doubles. A larger villa spreads fixed costs further, so the cost per square metre often drops as the area rises.
The level of finish
The difference between good standard materials and full luxury ones moves the price most on most villas. Your choice of finishes can double a budget without moving a wall.
Whether walls and services move
Redecorating is cheap. Moving a kitchen or a bathroom needs drawings, approvals and skilled workers, and so does opening a wall that holds up the floor above. Decorating needs none of that.
Whether you stay in during the work
Working around a family still living there means doing the job in stages, covering floors and furniture, and shorter working days. An empty villa is quicker and cheaper to work in.
How much is made to measure
Wardrobes and cabinets built to fit your rooms, and furniture made to order, cost more than pieces bought ready made. They also add weeks. How much you want is a budget decision.
Why us
What you get here that a company doing both the design and the building cannot offer you.
We do not profit from the build
A company that designs and builds is paid for the construction as well as the design. We are not. Nobody here has a reason to approve a price we would otherwise question.
You see the room before anyone orders anything
We produce photorealistic images of every main space from the final layout. You change things on screen while changes are still cheap. On site they are not.
Drawings a contractor can price without guessing
Unclear drawings are why villa budgets grow, because anything missing becomes an extra charge once work starts. Ours leave the contractor nothing to guess.
Interiors, architecture and landscape from one team
The inside, the building and the garden are drawn together. You are not left paying to fix the clashes between three separate firms later.
We are on site until it is finished
We do not hand over drawings and disappear. We answer the contractor's questions and approve the materials. Then we compare what gets built against what was drawn.
FAQ
Villa renovation questions, answered
We design and draw. Your contractor builds from our drawings, and we stay on site through the work. If you want one company to design and build, we are not it. Better to know now.
Cost moves with the size, the finish level, whether walls move, and how much is built to fit your rooms. Staying in the villa during the work adds to it again. We do not publish a price list, because no two villas are alike. Tell us the villa and what you want done, and we will come back with a realistic range.
Design takes about four weeks, from the first visit to measure the villa to a complete set of drawings. That assumes you approve each stage within a week. The build after it depends on how much you are doing and on your contractor, and runs to months rather than weeks. Dubai Municipality and developer approvals happen during the build, and they are the hardest part to predict.
Earlier than most people do. On a new villa, bring us in before you collect the keys, because changing a layout is cheapest on paper. On a villa you already live in, start once you know what you want to spend. Design takes about four weeks, so it sets the start date for everything after it.
The work is the same type of work. A villa is simply bigger to plan, and it needs approvals that an apartment renovation does not. Moving walls, moving a bathroom or adding a room all need Dubai Municipality permission. You also need a developer NOC, which is a no objection certificate from your community.
Yes, we prepare and submit every drawing that needs Dubai Municipality approval, including the NOC drawings your community developer asks for. An NOC is a no objection certificate. How long Dubai Municipality takes is not something we control. Sending drawings that are right the first time is.
If the work is limited to one or two rooms, yes. It has to be done in stages, with the rest of the house sealed off. For a full renovation where walls, pipes and floors all move, most owners move out for the noisiest stage. Living there through it is neither comfortable nor quick. We will tell you which of those two your villa is.
Yes, we design villa extensions and majlis additions, and we draw them for the Municipality submission. A villa extension changes the floor area, so it needs Municipality approval and a developer NOC before anything is built. We prepare those drawings alongside the interior design.
We choose every piece and write down the exact model and supplier. Nobody is choosing furniture on site. If you want, we arrange and place everything before you move in. You or your contractor buys the pieces from the list we give you.
Yes, and we do it often. We handle the interior design and the drawings, and we coordinate with whoever is already on the project. Where you have a contractor, we issue a set they can price and build from. We then stay on site through the work.
We work across Dubai, and most villa projects are in ten communities. Jumeirah Islands, Jumeirah Park, Emirates Hills, Palm Jumeirah, Arabian Ranches, Dubai Hills, Al Barari, Damac Hills, Tilal Al Ghaf and District One. If yours is not on the list, ask.
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