Architect and Mrs Dantata

23: AMAL

Our new house is the very last one in Crown Court Estate. There's a good reason why, trust me.

When Mama and Baba came to tour the estate, they had two options to choose from; three bedroom semi-detached duplexes and four bedroomed fully detached duplexes. Now keep in mind that we're currently staying in a five bedroomed duplex and they already think we need a bigger space so neither of the available options was going to work.

Since Mama and Baba loved the estate and didn't see themselves anywhere else, they got the four bedroomed fully detached duplex at the very end of the estate (our house number is literally Unit 106) and had a major renovation done. The first thing they had the construction company do was ruin the surrounding area of the house so we can have our own private compound with a gate. Baba says they had to pay extra for it but the money was worth it because having our own compound is the best thing.

When the fence was built round, they got started on expanding the house to fit in more rooms and give bigger spaces to already existing rooms. I'm talking about building the extended area from scratch and fitting it to the already existing house. What was bought as a four bedroomed house became a six bedroomed house with a main living room downstairs and a family lounge upstairs. The kitchen – Mama made sure of it – became bigger than its original size and she also made sure we got a pool at the back because she's always wanted one. It's nothing big but it's there and it's beautiful. She and Baba got potted plants too.

We officially began moving after meeting Zayd's family. The first thing we did was pick out the rooms we wanted. It's not surprising all of us chose to occupy the four rooms upstairs and leave the two rooms downstairs to serve as guest rooms. My room and Mahmud's (they're diagonal to each other and it's really cute!) are on the right side of the house while Mama and Baba have their rooms on the left, the family lounge and the stairs dividing both sides.

Our current room furniture are still fairly new (we got them before the winter break of final year) so there was no need to get them changed. Sure, there were some additions but the main things were just moved from our old rooms and set up in our new ones.

Our living room sofa set was moved up to the family lounge and new items were got for the living room. The dining set was just touched up before it set up in the new house. The kitchen was 50-50: half of it was brought from the old house and the other half was bought.

Moving is honestly the most tiring thing but we made do. Zayd offered to help but due to the fact that he spent a lot of time out of the office, there was a lot of work piled up which he had to catch up on. It's the thought that counts though. He even got some handymen to come over and help us finish up. Mama was the happiest person when they arrived. Having them on ground helped setting up the kitchen get finished faster and who wouldn't love that?

On the last day of August, Zayd turned twenty-six. I actually planned to take him out for a quiet dinner and pull up a little surprise but this man got called to Lagos for a meeting so we had to reschedule. On September 5th – Aliyah's birthday, my family meets Zayd's. It's also the same day Zayd returns to Abuja.

It wasn't planned, I promise. Mama and I wanted to go to Sahad to pick up some stuff. Mahmud and Baba decided to tag along. We were moving towards the payment point after picking out every needed item when I spotted Feenah before Mas'ood came into view. Mas'ood noticed me first and it didn't take long before we were meeting Zainab and Umar (it's still weird to call them by their names). Apparently, they were getting little things for the surprise dinner for Aliyah while Zayd was home, trying to rest a bit.

One thing led to the other and we got invited for the dinner. Did we say no? Of course not. Baba and Mahmud tried to back out but Mama told them we'd be there. According to her (and I agree), it's better we met that way. Thankfully, we all got along well and it was really nice.