My Own Home: Family of four spend Dh250,000 in five months renovating Dubailand apartment

Saher Iftikhar and her husband Mansoor changed the entire property

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  Saher Iftikhar Mansoor lives with her husband Mansoor Ali, and their two children, Dua and Nyle, in Queue Point, Liwan, Dubailand. All photos: Antonie Robertson / The National

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  Saher Iftikar Mansoor bonds more with her children now that the family have moved from a town house to an apartment. Antonie Robertson / The National

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  They renovated the entire property

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  The son's bedroom

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  The living room

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  The daughter's bedroom

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  They transformed the living, dining and kitchen areas with an open-plan concept

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  The master bedroom

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  One of three bathrooms

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  The neighbourhood

My Own Home takes you inside a reader-owned property to ask how much they paid, why they decided to buy and what they have done with it since moving in

Content creator Saher Iftikhar Mansoor and her entrepreneur husband Mansoor Ali were determined to renovate their three-bedroom apartment in Queue Point Liwan, Dubailand.

They bought it for about Dh1 million in April, then spent the next five months fully remodelling it, spending Dh250,000 on all the changes, which included everything from flooring to breaking down an entire wall.

The process wasn’t easy. As they struggled with their contractors, heavy storms began, destroying much of the work that had been done and setting them back by about a month.

The couple, who have both lived in the UAE for decades and share the property with their two children, aged 12 and 15, say it was worth the effort, though, as they love every inch of their new-look home.

The National takes a look around.

Please tell us about your home.

Saher Iftikhar Mansoor: We recently moved into a three-bedroom apartment in Dubai, which is located right in front of the US army base.

Why did you decide to buy?

Saher: There were several factors that we considered when we were house-hunting: the space, the area, the distance to and from our kids’ school, because that was my major concern. I used to drive 40 minutes every day one way to drop the kids and then have to pick them up again.

The community also plays a big role, because my kids are growing up now, and they're not housebound any more. They go out sometimes.

The community is what drew Saher Iftikhar and her family to their new home. Antonie Robertson / The National

Mansoor Ali: We got a good deal, and I thought we might as well just get it now, because it's hardly five minutes away from [the] kids’ school, and it's right in the middle of Mohammed bin Zayed Road, which is just after Global Village.

It is a great convenient location for me as well. It's against traffic, and I travel a lot to different emirates. It gives me easy access to Emirates Road. It’s also not too far away from the Downtown Dubai as well.

And one of the main reasons was because it has two parking spots, and they are both under cover and shaded.

Saher: We love the space, we love the community and everything.

What facilities do you have access to?

Saher: There are no amenities or anything in the building, but across the road we have a soccer park. My son loves to play football.

There's a 24-hour gym just behind our building. There's a clinic, a laundry, everything you need is nearby.

Mansoor: There’s a basketball court, cycling track, a running track. There’s also a Carrefour, Lulu Hypermarket and Al Madinah Hypermarket.

What renovations have you done?

Saher: There were several things I wanted done my way and since we bought the house, we had the freedom to make these changes. For example, I wanted an open kitchen, and this was a semi open kitchen with a small window outlet into the living room. So we decided to break the entire wall and give it a bigger space.

The kitchen and living room have been transformed into an open plan setting. Antonie Robertson / The National

We completely changed the ceilings, the doors, the floors, the kitchen cabinets, all the three washrooms were completely changed.

We used to live in a villa and this a downsize for us, so we wanted to utilise every single corner of this apartment. There was so much space on the ceiling, which we used to make extra storage cupboards on top of the wardrobes. We added shelving in the pantry room and took out the bathtubs in the washrooms, installing standing showers instead.

We wanted a small space for my husband's workstation as well, so we utilise the storeroom as his office, which helps him get his privacy and his quiet space to work.

How was your experience renovating the place?

Mansoor: I had a tough time dealing with the contractor and getting everything precisely done the way we wanted. It's very difficult to find a decent contractor who can get the job done as per your specific requirements. You just have to be there on top of their head and keep looking that everything done is properly.

Saher: For the entire renovation period, about five months, my husband would be at this place from eight in the morning until 11 at night. There were times initially when there was no electricity, no AC here.

And during our renovation period, the heaviest rain also happened. That's when our work actually doubled, because there was a water leakage inside the apartment. And we’d recently got all the new doors installed and the paint done, so everything got destroyed. For three days, we couldn't come to the house and have access or see anything.

The doors had swollen, the wood was destroyed, the paint had chipped. So that added another three to four weeks of work.

How did you decide on your interiors style?

Saher: Every piece of wall art in my house is custom made or personalised. I have not bought anything from a branded store or a gift shop. Even one thing that I got from Pan Emirates, we customised it and put LED lights behind it.

Ms Iftikhar gets her wall art custom made. Antonie Robertson / The National

I have one lady in Abu Dhabi, she does all the woodwork for me. Her page is called Artitude by Sammy. B and her work is amazing. I recently got a set of prayers done on a wooden platform with gold texture on it and that's the highlight of my living room. Anybody who walks into the house, those prayers are what catches their attention, and everybody asks where they’re from.

Whenever people come into my house, I don't want them to spot any brand, and I want that uniqueness on my wall. We have also revamped old furniture. We’ve taken a sustainable approach and used everything we could by giving it a facelift, whether upholstery or repainting it.

What is your favourite thing about this house?

Saher: We have put our heart and soul into this house. Every single thing, every corner has a personal touch. It is customised according to our preferences.

We have made everything very approachable, very practical, so it's aesthetically pleasing as well as very functional.

This house will always remain close to us.