four walls and a garden...

For some reason, I hate villa/house layouts in this world. I don't know if it's dubai specific, or just really everywhere, but every time I go see a villa... it sucks! Tiles everywhere, the kitchen in the probably ugliest shade of blue, the bathroom seals covered in dark brown from fungus and dirt of the old tenants and then there's the actual layout. I know for a fact, that people come here to earn mainly to support their families back home or to be the bachelor of the year, drinking out with friends and then get home drunk the following day just to get ready to go to the beach. So there's not really a reason for those kind of people to "enjoy" their home. But for some, like me and my wife, home is a very important word, this is where we come to after a long day at work, a stressful weekend running errands making sure we got everything in stock for the week. "Home". To me personally not just 4 walls and a garden, it's a sanctuary, to relax in the evening or over a lazy weekend. I can not tell, what I want as a layout, but I can say what I don't want as my home! I don't want a house to be called a villa, if in reality it's a high rise tower, built in two stories. (those compounds are not villas, they are ... a compound of ugly same type same layout houses, clogged together, with no garden (to some extend they have one) and no actual space to park your car.)
A Villa, to me is a building which has 2 stories, an attic (3rd floor), maybe even a basement. It has a Garden, a front yard, a driveway and a walkway which leads to the door. All that surrounded by a picket fence, a Post box outside and a pedestrian walk in front of it and again all that in four bedrooms! THAT to me is a Villa!

Maybe I'm spoiled, or too demanding, but it seems to me, that when people build houses here in dubai, they don't care on how it looks, they just want a big big big big big 16 bedroom Mansion that looks like the green/gold version of the Washington DC White House. Or they build a house with 5 living rooms, and a kitchen the size of my bathroom covered in white tiles, from the walls to the floor.

I guess what's annoying me the most on this is, they have the means to make a persons dream come true, you know the type of dream, of having a huge kitchen with all the cool appliances (in a proper, say... red and black design), a 3 Car Garage, 3 beautiful bedrooms with one master bedroom that is connected to a walking closet, not to forget the living room that has an attached open dining room and of course the garden with trees and grass. Instead however, they decide to have an entrance where 3 range rovers could fit through, 16 bedrooms with 1 window that is not bigger than your average kitchen window, 5 living rooms and no garden, instead... the backyard is covered in stone... seriously!

I hate properties in dubai! They belong to seemingly no one at all, because if they did, they'd be a persons dream come true!

-Alex