Luxury Residential Interior Fit-Out

Tilal Al Ghaf Interior Design - Luxury Residential Fit-Out

Tilal Al Ghaf, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

4,200 sq ft villa interior fit-out in Tilal Al Ghaf. Custom joinery, bathrooms, flooring, and smart home systems. Completed 2024.

Client

Tilal Al Ghaf Development

Completed

2024

Size

4,200 sq ft

Project Overview

This was a 4,200 sq ft interior fit-out for a villa in Tilal Al Ghaf, Majid Al Futtaim's master-planned community in Dubailand. The villa was handed over by the developer in a standard finish, and the client wanted a full interior upgrade — new flooring, custom joinery throughout, upgraded bathrooms, a redesigned kitchen, and a home automation system.

Working inside a developer-finished villa is different from fitting out a shell. The structure, windows, and basic MEP are already in place, which means the scope is focused on stripping existing finishes and replacing them rather than building from scratch. That sounds simpler, but it comes with its own problems — you're working around existing plumbing and electrical positions, and any changes to wet-point locations or electrical panel capacity need developer approval in a community like Tilal Al Ghaf.

Our team managed the full programme from demolition of existing finishes through to snagging and client walkthrough, with all works completed in 2024.

In-Depth Look

Project Details

Flooring, Joinery, and Kitchen

The existing developer-standard floor tiles were removed throughout the ground floor and replaced with large-format Italian porcelain (1200x600mm) in a light neutral tone. Upstairs, the client wanted engineered oak flooring, which we installed on a plywood subfloor over the existing screed. The transition between the two flooring types at the staircase landing required a custom brass threshold strip to keep the junction clean.

Kitchen demolition was the first major task. We stripped the existing cabinetry, worktops, splashback, and appliances down to the bare walls. The new kitchen was a custom design manufactured off-site in a local joinery workshop — spray-painted MDF doors with a handleless push-to-open detail, a quartz composite worktop, and integrated appliances. The layout changed slightly from the developer's original, which meant relocating one water point and adding an electrical socket circuit for a built-in coffee machine. Both modifications needed a no-objection letter from the community management before we could proceed.

Joinery elsewhere in the villa included full-height wardrobes in all four bedrooms (with internal LED lighting and soft-close drawers), a built-in TV and storage unit in the living room, and shelving in the study. All pieces were manufactured from the same shop drawings set, measured on site after demolition was complete.

Bathrooms and Home Automation

The master bathroom was fully gutted and rebuilt. We removed the existing tiles, sanitaryware, and vanity, then waterproofed the entire wet area using a liquid membrane system tested to 48-hour ponding before any new tiles went on. The new layout kept the waste positions in the same locations — moving them in a slab-on-grade villa means cutting into the concrete ground slab, which we avoided.

New finishes included large-format marble-effect porcelain on walls and floor, a wall-hung WC with concealed cistern, a freestanding soaking tub, and a frameless glass shower enclosure with a linear drain channel. The vanity was custom joinery with an integrated stone basin and wall-mounted mixers — all plumbing behind the vanity was concealed in a studwork bulkhead.

The home automation system covered lighting control, motorised curtains on all windows, HVAC zone control, and a multi-room audio setup. The existing villa had standard light switches and a basic split AC system, so our electrical team ran new control cabling and a Cat6 data backbone through the walls during the demolition phase — while the walls were open and before plastering. The system was commissioned as one of the last tasks before handover, with every scene programmed and tested room by room.

The contractor team coordinated 6 trades across this project — demolition, MEP, tiling, joinery, painting, and automation — all working inside a furnished community where noise is restricted to weekday daytime hours. Sequencing was everything.