10 Things you Need to Know Before Renovating a House in Abuja

When I was a fabulous teenager, I used to dream of being a grown up and being able to customize, design and DIY interior decorate my house by myself. I'd spend hours poring through my mum's better homes and garden magazine thinking one day, I too shall have a fabulous house done to my taste.

 

Now that I'm all grown up, I realise that our dream home will face two large hurdles; having to work hard and save the moola and then going through the stress of construction in Abuja.

Fixing up a house by itself is stressful. Add life in Nigeria, which is super stressful by itself into the mix and you've got double the stress. Of course this would be manageable if you've got reliable contractors. But if you find yourself in Abuja, where the workers are trying to cheat you 90% of the time, then you've got to be vigilant. Here are some lessons I've learnt along the way.

 

 

1. Have a Budget! Then multiply it by 1.5. That's how much you're actually going to spend. Maybe even a little bit more. Many little annoying charges that should have been communicated earlier will pop up, so it's best to be prepared before hand. Even after paying them up, they'll come to you with requests like;

• Transportation, which should have been included in your bill!
• Cleaning up! Because painters, plasterers tend to have a tough time staying within the lines! They'll stain your tiles, electricals and even your doors!
• "Missing" or "Broken" materials. Yup. The nerve!
• Some will change their mind about the price you agreed upon earlier and will give you excuses like "I didn't know how much work it would be."
• Do not allow them to commence work before a price agreement has been reached.

2. Do the legwork: Don't just sit there and wait for the electrician to bring you a bill for your fittings! You've got to get up and look for yourself. I hate going to markets, but I just had to do it after I got a ridiculous quote from an electrician. Not only will it help you come up with ideas, but it'll give you the real price range so that you won't be cheated. If you're thinking of renovating, you need to visit;

• Gudu Market: tiles, faucets, electrical fittings, lights, chandeliers, nearly everything!
• Dulux: They have the widest paint Range in town and they'll even give you a chart free.
• Next: the hardware section has a little bit of everything:- textured paints and paint mixers
• Wallpaper world
• Alibert, Alfemo for your furniture and decorations
• Just make sure you have an idea of the cost and range of items available. Do not just trust the contractor. Why? That's my next point.

3. Contractors lie: they also steal and cheat. Not all of them, of course. But some have done so, giving them a bad name. Mr. H tells me it's Abuja contractors that are notorious for this! Over the past few months we've worked with some relatively honest contractors (the carpenter) and some despicable ones (the painter, the removalists). So they're not all bad. You just have to be able to suss out the wheat from the chaff.

• "Aunty, we go finish am by tomorrow." But tomorrow will never come.
• "Aunty, I no call price for you o. I dey do am for double, but because na you, I reduce am." Lies!
• "This one na imported, that's why e dey expensive. That one you see na local one." Lies!
• The easiest way to cheat you is to inflate the cost of materials, that's why you have to have an idea of prices before you even meet a contractor!
• Make sure you buy only what you need at that time or else the items might just mysteriously go missing.
• Another way to cheat you is by inflating the magnitude of work to be done, which leads me to my next point...

4. Know your measurements: Don't just know your measurements, but know them in meters inches, square meters and square footage! I remember one guy had a funny way of measuring width. Instead of stretching the tape flat, he did it at an angle diagonally, so he added nearly 7 inches to each measurement. He didn't know I caught him and I already had the exact values! Ironically he wouldn't have gained up to N2000 with the cheat figures. Why not just be honest? Sigh.

• Invest in a tape measure with both metric and imperial systems.
• Measure the area required for floorings, furnishing, curtains or blinds and keep. They'll surely come in handy.
• Monitor the contractor when they're measuring.
• Know the cost of your item (flooring/curtains/blinds/tiles) per square meter before buying.

5. Don't be the first: Use reputable contractors. Ask around with friends or family for the workers they used. That way, you're sure of what you're getting and the chances of being disappointed are minimized.

6. You must Micromanage: it's okay to check your work every now and then. In fact you need to be on top of everything all the time, before and during construction. Not just calling on the phone, but be there in person when possible. This will ensure you and the workers are on the same page

• Communicate with photos. Give pictures where possible of your expectations as a guide.
• Don't just print out your entire pinterest board though! Just one or two with the exact results you're after or the end concept
• I always hand draw what I want from my carpenter (labeled with dimensions) and for the 3 years I've been using him, I've never been disappointed.
• Let them show you what they've done before. Everyone has a smart phone these days and that's the best way to know their strengths.
• Ask questions when you're not sure:
• "This isn't how you're going to leave this, right?
• "Does something else go over this?"
• "Is this the final coat?"
• "Are you going to polish this afterwards?

7. Don't be shy, Negotiate!: Haggle, if you must! If you think the quote you received is exorbitant, say it! My rule of thumb is to never accept the first quote I get because many contractors quote ridiculous prices at first thinking you'll negotiate! They try their luck to see if you'll fall mugu, so you have to be tactful too! Take this painter, who seemed all nice and honest at first. So we trusted him to come up with a quote for painting an entire apartment. He quoted N95,000 for workmanship alone! What is he painting, the Sistine chapel? Luckily we knew the standard going price for painters in Abuja and called him out sharply.

• Labour isn't expensive, so use your judgment on the magnitude of work to estimate what you're getting from the workers
• Ask around what the going rate for that particular service is.
• Ask for an itemized quote: how much do the materials cost?
• It is okay to tip your workers. Just make sure you differentiate which one is out of their payment and which is from your kindness.

8. Document everything: receipts, payments, deposits, measurements, agreements, outstanding balances, phone numbers,

• It's not unusual to have paid up all your fees but get a call one or two days later saying you still have some money outstanding. See points 1, 2, & 3 above
• We had a bill of 50,000 to pay, so we paid 30,000 upfront as a deposit with the remaining balance (20,000) to be paid pending completion. When it was time to pay, the guy said that the outstanding fee was 30,000, not 20,000. Where on earth did the extra 10,000 come from? Some workers try their luck to cheat you at every turn. He thought I hadn't written everything down! How wrong he was.
• Keep bank tellers, so you don't have to deal with "I no receive alert."

9. Work with time: Give the workers a time frame, even if it's a fake one to motivate them to work efficiently

• Contractors in Abuja often take on many jobs at the same time, so if you don't appear to need your work soon, they'll concentrate on all those other jobs and be sloppy and tardy with yours.
• If you have an actual deadline make sure you tell the workers you need it done half the time. For instance, if you need something done in two weeks make sure you tell them you only have a week or 5 days. That way if they delay or mess it up, you have more than enough time to fix it up.
• Show the extent if your disappointment if they don't meet up to the deadline, however you must also reiterate that you will not accept a shoddy rush job either!

10. Pay up strategically: Do not pay up the total bill before the service is provided. Give a deposit first, even if you think they don't need it. It'll motivate them to work. Then on successful completion of your work, you pay the remaining.

• The most annoying issue was with our painter who was given a handsome deposit to commence work but instead, sent "one of his boys" who did an absolutely shitty job! First of all, they mixed up the colours for the rooms! The guest room didn't need to be painted at all and the baby room was supposed to be painted a baby blue and sorbet pink. Instead, they painted the guest room baby blue and sorbet pink (imagine!) with a shitty job at the line of demarcation and just left the baby room unpainted! He didn't buy the agreed amount for the living room paint and some areas were suspiciously patchy, it looked like the paint was diluted with water! I was beyond furious, but I let Mr. H deal with it. The dude apologized but was never heard from again. We were so glad we didn't pay it all. And we used the balance on another painter to clean up the mess.

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Where is my pregnancy glow?

Disclaimer: This post was drafted about 16 Months ago while I was pregnant with my daughter. I have since given birth to a lovely little girl and one year on, we are both doing well. This is a true story based on what I went through, just to lighten your mood with a glimpse of the everyday challenges some pregnant women go through. Make sure you share with someone who'd appreciate it. :)


As I sit here, back arched with 2 pillows, legs propped up against a chair and butt painfully aching, I can't help but realize someone, somewhere has pulled a fast one on me.

How? How did this happen? How did I, Fatima of Daura, let myself be deceived when I should've known better. For starters, I am not very gullible. Especially when it came to science-y stuff. I'm usually the one everyone goes to for all things body related. I am first a physiologist and then a pharmacist after all, and I did specialize in adaptations to stress and body control mechanisms. So you would think I'd have it all figured out. That when someone (everyone!) tells me blatant lies like:

"Pregnancy is a beautiful thing."

"You'll be eating for two,"

"You're going to love being pregnant!"

"You won't gain that much weight."

"It's easier than it looks."

"You'll have a glow."

...that I will take it with the proverbial grain of salt.

But no, I believed. Especially after the rocky road it took us to get here. I believed finally, with this double lined pee on a stick, I had reached my pot of gold. It couldn't get much more difficult from here, right?

Oh, how wrong I was.

I mean I wasn't a total mugu. I knew the delivery process was not going to be easy. In fact, I was terrified by the prospect of it. I mean, how can you possibly push a tuber of yam out of a toothpaste hole? But on that joyous pee on a stick day, I convinced myself that it was still 8.5 months away. I still had ages to prepare myself mentally, emotionally and physically for that very day. Until then, I shall cruise along with my growing pouch, eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted while everyone everywhere makes way for the almighty pregnant lady.

Turns out the only way people will be making was to avoid me lashing out at them or puking on them as I searched frantically for the perfect spot to aim my projectile vomit.

Then there's that awful feeling that comes afterwards. That empty, there's nothing-in-my-stomach-but-acid feeling that opens a waterfall of saliva, squirting in torrents from underneath your tongue, forcing it's way in all directions, gushing down your throat, seeping through your teeth. Before you even figure out what to do with this horrid saliva building up in your mouth, it returns. Only this time, there's absolutely no food in your stomach. So what comes out is stomach acid mixed with the unmistakeable bitterness of bile and, often, blood. Yes, blood. Not in a Nollywood I-shot-you-on-the-foot-so-you-should-vomit-5litres-of-blood way, but a small teaspoon.

But wait, there's more! The slight relief you feel post retching is quickly replaced by a razor blade sharp pain in your throat. Oh oh, this could only mean one thing. The stomach acid you just puked has corroded the lining on your throat (hence the blood). This also means, despite it being just 9am, you have no appetite for the rest of the day. All is not lost though, instead of eating all that yummy pepper soup (your right, as a preggy lady!) you get the pleasure of secreting even more bucket loads of saliva.

At this point one of your annoying nosy coworkers has started shooting you dirty looks. How dare you spit in public? Don't you know you're a lady? Nevermind that you're spitting in a civilized manner (not in a container, ewww, no! You have a clean plastic bag beside you and an entire roll of tissue beside it. You cover your mouth completely and spit discreetly into the tissue, fold it in two and then dispose it in the plastic bag which is stowed away from sight). But no, Nosy Coworker isn't satisfied with that.

But Motherly Coworker and Niceguy Coworker calm you with sympathetic looks. In an hour, they beg you to take a break. They may even buy you White soup from the Hospital Canteen (which you still can't eat!) and ask you to go sleep in the Pharmacy call room. And if they're feeling even more generous, they'll let you go two hours early, so you call The Husband and gleefully knock off for the day.

But the husband is worried. "How can you not eat all day? Don't you know you're carrying a baby?" At this point you wonder whether he cares more about you or "his" unborn child. Surely if he cared more about you he'd understand nausea is a terrible thing. So you take a detour to a nearby grocery store deli and he tells you to pick whatever you like. At the checkout counter the POS machine is taking too long and you've suddenly got the urge to pee. But the Checkout chick, with her rainbow toucan colored eyeshadow starts checking out the next person after you and your sale isn't through yet.

Oh, hell no! It all rushes to the surface; the bulbous acne that has now enveloped your skin, neck, back and even shoulders, your nose that's now big enough to stash an orange, the measly 3 hours of sleep you got last night because the baby is a Lionel Messi in the making, the skirt that didn't fit this morning, the feet that are so swollen you now wear thongs to work, the weight you're gaining even though you barely eat anything, that pregnant friend of yours who is further along than you are and is barely showing, that other friend who belittles your symptoms because she didn't feel them when she was pregnant, the boobs that are now very sore, the nausea, the vomiting, the taste of bile, the pain in your throat, the salivating, the nosy coworker, the food that smells so nice yet you can't eat, even the coke that you once loved so much but now only triggers heartburn. All that anger causes a nuclear fusion in your head and your wrath is unleashed on the Toucan Checkout Chick. "Customer Service is so poor in Nigeria," you rant heatedly. "How can you serve the next person when my sale isn't even though yet? Have you gone mad?"

The husband tries to calm you down. It's not that big of a deal. Though deep down inside you, you know he thinks you're overreacting. But he dares not say it. In fact, the words "because you're hormonal" have been permanently deleted from his vocabulary since you bit his head off over them months ago.

You continue the 15 minute journey home. "Stop the car!" You yell. Just 5 minutes away from home, but you can't wait any longer. You open the passenger door and aim for the pedestrian walkway to puke out another stomachful of acid, bile and blood. But this time, there's an additional liquid from another opening. You have inadvertently peed yourself.

"Shit!" You curse. And the husband gasps and raises his brows in alarm. "No, no, no, not literally!" You reassure him and he sort of calms down. Meanwhile, because you refused to completely let go during the vomit, you're still holding in half a bladder full of urine.

Miraculously you make it home in one piece. You make a beeline to the toilet directly. You take your clothes off in the tub. You fill it up with warm water and you want to relax and completely let go but no, you can't use your favourite Bath and Body works body wash because you absolutely hate the smell now. So you settle for Aveeno, unscented, but then 2 minutes in you realize you can't stand the humidity in the bathroom. You suddenly feel like you're suffocating and if you didn't get out right now, you'll keel over and die. So you rush out in a panic, unrelaxed and scared.

You put on the loosest bath robe you can find and make your way to the living room. The Husband has set up your spot for you. In front of the TV that has been tuned in to BBC Lifestyle, Directly underneath the AC, within arms reach of every remote control you'd ever need and a fresh roll of toilet paper and a plastic bag. He props your back up on a pillow and for the first time all day, you're somewhat comfortable, though something tells you that is going to be short lived.

Sure enough, you feel a sharp prod in the rear. Could it be? After nearly 5 days? Have your bowels finally called off their indefinite strike? Feels like it. You're sort of relieved. It must've been the warm bath, the doctor says it helps loosen the stool. But you're not going to the loo just yet. No, you have to play hard to get. The last thing you want is to sit on a loo for too long. That's how people get haemorrhoids, you don't want to add to this already difficult pregnancy.

He has to go out, he says. Dinner with friends and you're suddenly irrationally angry again. You want to blurt out your anger, but you keep it In. Deep inside, you're thinking: How dare he eat when you're going through hell? He is soo insensitive! He has no compassion! Gosh, men are so insensitive!

You ask him to do you a favour before he goes out. Could he please get you the Ribena you forgot in the freezer this morning. He brings it. Of course It's frozen. But you want Ribena. Unless he was willing to be late to dinner, he should let you have it. You ask him to bring you a pair of scissors and a teaspoon. He finally leaves. You cut open the top of the juice box, wedge your spoon in and into your mouth.

Oh. God! Where had this been all your life? The ice soothes the soreness of your throat and your stomach voraciously devours the sweet blackcurrant juice, it's first meal of the day. The second spoon comes with some brain freeze, but you pull through. Spoon after spoon, the colour is returning to your face. You've forgotten about the Toucan Checkout chick and the anger at Nosy Coworker had greatly diminished. You aren't even angry that the sadistic bitch you hated tied in first place on Come Dine With Me. Even the sharp prodding on your bum had softened to a numb spasm and you know for sure that tonight is the night you passed that number 2! The Husband returns from Di Maria with a takeout full of that prawn risotto you love. You think he's the best husband ever! Tonight's his night to get lucky.

You even manage to get 4 uninterrupted hours of sleep that night! All because of a pack of Ribena. You're going to get a carton tomorrow, you promise yourself. Maybe even mix it up. Ribena, Ziza, caprisonne! The possibilities are endless. You have found the key to a beautiful pregnancy. You deserve a Nobel Prize.

You get to work the next day, optimistic as can be. You spill it all to Niceguy Coworker. He's happy you've found comfort. He even offers to go to the store and buy you the Ribena later. But then Nosy Coworker overhears you.

"Are you not pregnant?" He asks with derision. "How can a pregnant woman take something cold? Frozen? You're not even supposed to drink something sugary. It is bad for your baby. You're being selfish."

It is only then you feel your eye colour change. Nuclear fusion is about to happen. All the unpleasant feelings that you've been bottling come to the surface: all that anger towards your husband that you dare not show because it's not his fault, the people who see you after months and tell you how big you have gotten, the fact that you can no longer sleep on your back or stomach and have to wake up 15 times a night to turn over, that you still have to work night calls just as many times as non pregnant coworkers right up to your EDD, the warning your OB GYN had given you about not eating, as if it were so easy to eat food, how Kate Middleton has the whole world worried about her Hyperemesis and here you have nearly everyone downplaying yours; you could've been a princess too! Nosy Coworker and all the annoying things about him: His deodorant that smells of old spice and rotten eggs, his accent that can't seem to decide whether it's Nigerian, American or Kenyan, the way he brandishes his political inclination and ridicules anyone who disagrees, his not so subtle tribalistic jabs at Hausa people even though he is well aware that it might offend nearly half of the staff present. You package it all nicely in a spontaneous tirade which left Nosy Coworker staring, mouth agape. He can't believe the otherwise quiet pharmacist can dish so eloquently. He tries to retort but other coworkers shut him up instantly. Doesn't he know you're pregnant? Why did he pick on you? He lingers shamefacedly for another five minutes and then he disappears.

Nosy Coworker changed departments that afternoon.

You continue your frozen Ribena diet until one afternoon two weeks later when you suddenly stop. You no longer cared for Frozen Ribena. You will now only eat Guavas. Un ripe Guavas.

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