Our Villa

I feel like I don't have much to say about our new villa in Dubai yet, because we're currently living in a mostly empty shell of a house with temporary furnishings. It certainly doesn't feel like home yet and likely won't until next spring after our things arrive and we have them unpacked and in their proper place.

However, I know our family and friends back home are wondering and trying to picture us in our new environment. So I will attempt to share some photos and descriptions of our current living situation, even though I think the photos do a poor job.

Our primary goal in choosing a house (villa) was to be near Jeff's office. He works in a business district called Jumeirah Lake Towers, known as JLT. There were many residential options for us near there and we first tried to lease a new townhome nearby, but there weren't any available for lease when we needed to make a decision. So we settled on another nearby neighborhood called Jumeirah Park, which is a large residential area of standalone villas. Jumeirah Park consists of multiple sections called Districts, and each of the Districts have a distinct floorplan and elevation for the villas. As in, every single villa is exactly the same on the inside and outside. It's "cookie cutter" to the extreme! We moved into a 4 bedroom/3.5 bathroom villa in the brand new District 9, and we are surrounded by other villas just like ours. Below is a photo taken from the 3rd story roof of our villa. Notice that the area is so new that the sidewalks all have sprinkler systems installed but no grass yet.

Here are some photos from the inside of our home. Right now the furnishings are quite sparse. And with the expansive rooms covered in tile, it can be difficult to have a conversation due to the loud echo all across the villa. The other thing I've mentioned before is that none of the windows came with curtains or blinds, so we had quite the privacy issue for the first couple of weeks. Within a few days, we ordered window coverings and hope to make those work for both privacy and décor, as well as for blocking the light from the multiple street lamps outside.

Each of the 4 bedrooms come with built-in wardrobes as you can see from the above photo. They are very nice and allow for quite a bit of storage, although I suspect once our things arrive from home, we'll be wondering where to put everything.

As is usual in this area of the world, each of the 4 bathrooms come equipped with a hose/sprayer by the toilets. And the master bath has the separate bidet as well. I doubt it will ever be used, although the kids have tried the sprayers and said the water was too cold for them, ha! (Update: one of the kids told me that he/she is now regularly using the sprayer!)

Most villas in this area also come with a maid's room, which is a small bedroom (more like a closet) with wardrobe and tiny bathroom near the kitchen area. Live-in nannies are very common here so the maid's room is a standard addition. I was planning to post a picture of the maid's room/bathroom but honestly the area is so small that I can't get a good angle. We plan to use the room as our laundry/utility space since it's right next to the washer/dryer hallway in between the garage and the kitchen.

And finally, the garage...now that we have both cars inside, we have been pleasantly surprised at the spacious width of the garage. It's way easier to park in there than it was in our US homes. We can fit both cars and never risk door dings!

There are several differences we've noticed in the construction of this villa as opposed to homes back where we've lived in the States.

First of all, the rooms all come with their own thermostats. That means that you have multiple A/C units servicing your villa. I think this villa comes with 9 units!

Another thing Jeff noticed was that the walls are made of cinder block instead of sheetrock. He was commenting about how challenging it will be to hang all of our wall décor when it finally arrives, ha! And because of the construction, the entire villa is much more insulated from sound than our previous houses. Gone are the days when we can hear the loud, rambunctious play in the game room above or even, say, an angry kiddo stomping up the stairs in anger...HA!

The light switches and electrical outlets are different from what I've seen before, too. Each electrical socket, even the ones on extension cords, all come with an on/off switch to activate power to each individual socket.

You will also find a water heater switch next to each water source that must be turned on to activate the hot water. (We spent our entire first night in the villa without hot water because we hadn't figured that out yet, ha!)

Probably the biggest change so far from our villa compared to our previous houses is that all of the external doors of the villa are keyed entries. If you close the door behind you when you take the trash outside, you will be locked out of the house. Each time the kids go outside to play, they have to ring the gate doorbell to be let back in the house. Even the garage entry door requires a key to get inside. As much as we come and go, even just around the neighborhood, it has been difficult to get used to needing a key to get back inside the villa each and every time. And speaking of keys, THESE were the keys we were given when we leased the villa. Yes, ALL of those keys are for our house. Every single door requires a unique key, and they weren't all labeled either. Yikes!

One of my favorite areas of the villa is the outdoor space, which has its own gated courtyard with a covered entry area. Below is an aerial view; hard to tell, but it's a spacious area. Connor can't wait to get his basketball goal set up so that he can play with friends.

Speaking of friends, we've met several of our neighbors here in Jumeirah Park already, and have even enjoyed a weekend barbeque with the family across the street. After only 2 weeks of living here, Connor and Kaitlynn are now spending hours outside most days with their new friends that live on our street. So far we've met new friends and neighbors from Egypt, Brazil, Scotland, UK, and Canada. We feel so blessed to have already been welcomed so graciously by our neighbors, and we look forward to the coming months when we can turn our villa into our family home.