My Own Home: British mural artist builds a production studio in basement of Dh2.8 million Springs villa

Madeleine Butcher and her husband Jacopo both work from their four-bedroom home

Madeleine Butcher and her husband Jacopo Mangiapane bought their four-bedroom home in Springs 14 in September 2022. All photos: Antonie Robertson / The National

The house cost Dh2.8 million

There are murals by at least three different artists in the garden

Ms Butcher is a mural artist and so the house is very colourful

The living room

The TV room

Ms Butcher describes her interior style as eclectic

Every inch of space is used

The production company offices in the basement

The bathroom

Ms Butcher sees her family living in Springs 14 for at least a decade

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

British mural artist Madeleine Butcher and her Italian husband Jacopo Mangiapane could see so much potential in their new Dubai home when they bought it two years ago. Not only does the villa in Springs 14 have four bedrooms, but also a basement, one of very few properties with one in the entire development.

As they co-own a production company, Crisp Arthouse, they realised they could save money on office space by running it from their house. But it’s also a family space, a place for them to lay down roots, where they can see themselves living for many years to come.

The National takes a look around.

Please tell us about your home

It’s a four-bedroom villa in Springs 14. One of the things that make this house really interesting for us is that it has a basement – and there are only, I think, about eight or nine houses in all of Springs that have a basement. We have a production company so, as soon as we were walking around it, we said this would be our production company offices, and that added a huge amount of value to the property for us on a yearly basis, because of what we would be spending to rent offices elsewhere.

How much did you buy the house for?

We bought it for Dh2.8 million and we spent about, I'm going to be realistic, probably Dh250,000 on renovations.

I know a three-bed right now, I think, is about Dh4 million to Dh4.5 million and I think a four-bed is going to be more than that. But honestly, even though we're getting calls from real estate agents, like everybody else in this neighbourhood, probably about eight people a day, I'm not thinking about the value of it so much now, because I know that we are going to live in and enjoy this house for at least another 10 years. It's an investment in our life as a family, rather than a number.

What renovations have you done?

We were living in Springs 9 for three years before, in the same type of building as the one that we've got now, so as soon as we got into this one, we knew all of the things that we needed to do to it, because we'd spent years thinking about what we wanted to do.

The couple built a green space in the outdoor area. Antonie Robertson / The National

We removed a huge AC vent that went around the whole of the ceiling of the living room. By doing that, we increased the size of the living room space. We also added archways and removed a couple of walls, and we added four windows, so we kind of brightened everything up.

The basement was only used as storage before and it also didn't have a garden. It just had concrete tiles, and so we dug up two holes and created garden space. We planted three big trees and created a green space, which we use very regularly for parties and quiz nights. We have murals by at least three different artists in the garden.

We use every inch of the space, and the kids are growing to expand to fit it, just like fish in a tank, and we're grateful for all of the areas that we've built up. One of the other things that we did was we turned what is traditionally the office at the front into our TV room so that we don't have a TV dominating the main living space. We wanted to see if we can lessen the impact of screens on our kids as much as we can.

How was the renovations process?

When we put the payment down on the house, I found out I was pregnant about three weeks afterwards, so we were in the middle of the handover, and then we did probably about three months of renovations while I was pregnant. It was an interesting time for my husband, but we worked with a couple of contractors, and we knew what we wanted to do, so that was helpful.

For the bigger things that you want to do in terms of knocking walls down or adding windows, don't skimp. Get a decent contractor, even if the price looks horrific.

We did a second round of renovations after about six months of being in the house. We used a different contractor because we sourced all of the materials from RAK Ceramics and Dragon Mart. We learnt that you should be prepared to pay extra for an expensive contractor, because it's your house, and you don't want to cut corners.

How would you describe your interior design style?

Artworks are hung all over Madeleine Butcher's home. Antonie Robertson / The National

Eclectic. Maximalist. We actually have a whole pile of paintings and pictures by my friends, a lot of them are professional artists, that are still to go up. We like big patterns and big colours, and I want my children to always grow up with these colours and these patterns in the backgrounds of their imagination. As an artist, I hate a plain white wall when there can be something on it.

Why did you choose Springs 14?

As a gated community, it's safe for the kids to go everywhere. We love our security guys. And also, the age of the community is lovely because it means that the lakes and the trees feel a lot more organic.

There are a lot of people who have been here for 10 years-plus and, when you talk to your neighbours, everyone has a vested interest in this place. And there isn't one dominant nationality, there's a real mix. And we love that, because we want our children to understand the mix of cultures here by living in it and not just being told about it. That means everything to us.

Our kids now are too young to go off by themselves and play, but the nannies in this community are invaluable in terms of coming together on their own. There are probably about eight different play dates that kids could plug into on any day of the week. And all the nannies know each other and communicate.

What amenities do you have?

We have a swimming pool that's [at an] OK temperature most of the year. There is a basketball court. A short cycle ride away, there is a tennis court. There’s the two malls on either side for our groceries. One thing that's really nice is you're able to ride a bike from here to Emirates Golf Course and to Phileas Fogg’s. I feel like we're on the right side of Al Khail Road and Hessa Street, because of the traffic. We’re grateful because we can get in and out of the city, but we're still able to separate ourselves from it.

How long do you plan to be here for?

My partner is Italian, and I'm British, and like many of our friends, we're multicultural, and we have found, particularly living in Springs and talking to our neighbours, that for so many people, this is a home. We can picture the future of our family lives here, and this house represents that. This community represents that, and we've invested in both because we see a long term future here, with nearby schools, nearby medical facilities, and obviously places to bike ride.

There are many things that make us grateful to be here for the long term, and safety is a big, big part of that, too.