remodeling

My hubby and I have decided to do some remodeling in our home. And I'm talking some major remodeling, like tearing down a couple of walls. It's going to take some time and a lot of money but the part I love most is designing and decorating. I will try to explain a few things we have in mind. I don't have pics to show a "before" due to some computer problems, but I have them somewhere saved and will try to find them. If not, I'll take new ones. So for now we have to visualize. I think I need to start by explaining how houses and apartments are designed here in Riyadh.

I think I posted about this being but I'll review. :-) A typical house has at least four rooms on the first floor; living room, dining room, and sitting rooms for guests (usually one for women, one for men). It also has a kitchen and two baths. Some houses can be bigger. The second floor has bedrooms(at least four) and baths. There are usually at least 3 baths upstairs (some houses have a bath for every bedroom). The third floor has quarters (a room and bath) for the live-in housekeeper. Newer houses, such as my in-laws, are being built with basements, which gives the house an extra two or so rooms.

Apartments are similar but on a smaller scale. They have a kitchen, living room, sitting room for guests and bath for guests, plus 2-4 bedrooms, with 1-2 extra baths. They usually have quarters for a housekeeper, but not always. Some apartments have indoor stairs that lead to 1-2 rooms upstairs and the roof which houses a patio-type area (houses here are flat, so the roof has walls around it and is like a third floor).

This is the fourth place we've had in the 5 1/2 years I've lived in Saudi. We moved each time for a valid reason though. Our first place was really nice inside but ended up not being as nice of an area as thought (it was still very new when hubby first made the contract). Our second place, I loved! We lived there for awhile and it was right next to the school I work at. Unfortunately that ended up being a bad thing. Students would hang out near our apartment building and started causing problems. It was a perfect size for hubby and me but when we became three we outgrew it anyway. So we moved to our third place. The third place had potential but needed a lot of work. It was so spacious and I had so many creative ideas for it. Even though it was an apartment, we had private parking, many rooms, quarters for a housekeeper, and a private, outside patio area. Right as we were deciding whether to invest money to remodel it, hubby's parents bought a new house. Their new house had a separate apartment built into the house, something that is not uncommon these days. People either rent it out to family or look for some nice tenents. My in-laws wanted us to move in. After some quick thinking, we agreed. At the time hubby had rotating shifts which meant my little guy and I would be home alone during the night during his night shifts. We all felt safer being so close to family.

Even though our home is considered an apartment, it has two floors. Our first floor has our kitchen, living room, guest sitting room, and one bathroom. Our second floor has three bedrooms and two baths. We also have a small patio area on our third floor as well as patio area on the ground floor where our front door is located. Even though our place is built into my in-laws house, it is completely private, with our own entrance. I know it sounds confusing.

So our current plans are to:

• remove the wall that separates our guest/sitting area and living room, this will open the area up into one big space, our kitchen is already opened to our living room with a small breakfast bar, the plan would then be to have sections within this big space; living room, dining room, a small computer area, and of course the kitchen which is already in place
• redo the flooring, we have tiles now which I love but there are some areas that were not done correctly, the new trend here is to install flooring that resembles wood, we're looking into it
• redo the tiling in our kitchen, again some mistakes were made and it's driving my hubby crazy (I personally don't think it's too bad)
• paint - we currently have this beige kind of color which is nice and neutral, but we want some color, I'm having some problems deciding on this, but I'm leaning towards something involving green or purple or perhaps both, will post ideas later ;-)
• redo the steps and railing, we hate them
• remove a wall upstairs that would give us a nice space at the top of our stairs, big enough for a small sitting area, possibly install sky-light window there too
• redo the bathrooms, the little guy's bathroom needs some tweaking and the master bath needs a make over
• paint the upstairs, again, have to decide on colors
• build a small laundry room or closet
• build storage throughout the house (houses here do not normally have closets or storage spaces built into them, this means you have to buy closets or have them built in)

So as you can see, we have A LOT of things going on here. Right now we're in the planning stages but we could begin all of this in a matter of weeks. I'll keep you all updated as we go along. ;-)

Btw, if anyone would like to share opinions/advice on colors or know of any fabulous websites I could check out, please share! I'm also looking at different ways I can arrange everything in this big open space we're going to create. Family, that goes for you too! Email me. ;-)