For years, home for Lindsay Lohan meant a suitcase, a hotel key card and whatever room she happened to be living in that season. There was an extended stay at Los Angeles’ Chateau Marmont, rented properties in Beverly Hills, and the sense that permanence was always just out of reach. That changed when the actress, her husband Bader Shammas and their son Luai settled in Dubai, where the family has now moved into a 7,000-square-foot villa and set about turning it into something they had never quite had before: a real home.
The shift is meaningful precisely because of what came before. Lohan moved to Dubai in 2014, driven partly by a desire for greater privacy and distance from Hollywood’s constant attention. As Realtor reported, she has continued to value the relative normalcy and security she finds in the city, particularly while raising her son. Professional commitments still take her back to the United States, but Dubai remains the family’s primary home, and the villa’s design reflects that grounded way of living.
What makes the transformation striking is how little of it involved starting over. Rather than discarding her belongings for a fresh set of purchases, Lohan wanted the new house to carry forward pieces from her previous apartment. Furniture, artwork and accessories accumulated over the years became part of the villa’s design, giving the expansive property a sense of continuity. Her former apartment’s furnishings were used to recreate the guest bedroom, while the living areas kept an existing sofa and coffee table. The dining table and chairs made the move too, along with a bar and artwork collected during her travels. The result is a home shaped by personal history, where objects hold memories alongside their practical purpose, and an approach that quietly favours sustainability over replacement.
The timeline made that reuse more than a preference; it was a necessity. According to The National, Lohan and Shammas needed to move in within two weeks, a turnaround far shorter than a bespoke residential project usually demands. The assignment fell to interior designer Kate Instone of the luxury design firm Blush, whose brief was to create a relaxed, family-friendly environment inspired by coastal living, with soft neutrals and nautical blues that would make the house feel welcoming rather than overstyled.
Even with familiar furniture doing much of the work, filling thousands of square feet in days required serious shopping. Lohan explored local brands including Home & Soul, 2XL and Indigo Living, selecting pieces that complemented what she already owned. Instone and her team coordinated fabric samples, upholstery, cushions and furniture finishes so the new additions blended with the old, an approach The National noted showed how a considered design plan and access to local retailers could make a compressed schedule manageable.
Not every room needed new furniture to change character. In the kitchen, the existing cabinetry was retained and covered with vinyl, creating a lighter, airier appearance without a full renovation, according to Realtor. Mirrors became another key element: a trio arranged along a living-room wall brightened what had been a dark interior, reflecting light and opening up the space. That idea came from Lohan herself, a sign of how involved she was in the decisions shaping her family’s surroundings.
Personal touches appear throughout the house. A large, comfortable sofa and a tapestry that Lohan and Shammas selected when they first met give the television area warmth and a sense of intimacy within the villa’s generous proportions. Artwork adds further character, including Blue Lips by Dubai-based British mixed-media artist Louise Duggan, alongside commissioned console tables and pieces sourced from local retailers. In a practical nod to daily life, one of the four bedrooms was converted into a dressing room to accommodate Lohan’s extensive shoe collection, tailoring the villa to how the family actually lives rather than following a conventional layout.
In a house of this scale, the easiest path would have been to begin again with everything new. Instead, the two-week transformation reflects something more personal: a home built around the pieces that survived the hotel years, the rented apartments and the moves, and that now anchor a family settling into the permanence they spent a long time looking for.