I can recommend the interior designer I used

If u need it

'The Board of Architects Malaysia (Lembaga Arkitek Malaysia, LAM) is the statutory body overseeing the registration and regulation of interior designers under the Architects Act 1967 (Act 117). According to this Act, individuals or firms offering interior design services must be registered with LAM. Providing such services without registration is an offense, punishable by fines up to RM50,000, imprisonment for up to two years, or both .'

I prefer to hire different contractors to do different work. I know this may be more expensive but I am willing to take the risks.

Also I will do it slowly. For eg, I hire a contractor to renovate the toilets, 1 month later I hire another contractor to put insulation and change the tiles, then I hire another contractor to install new electric gate.

That's my plan for my dream house. I am still collecting my money to buy my dream house.

Can you pm me the name of this ID so that I can avoid them at all cost.

Exactly... it was unfortunately form over function. One of the shelf also ended up obstructing the opening of the electrical main distribution box. Imagine if I need any electrical work in the future with the box. How is the electrician gonna sort it out?
I've repeatedly reminded them regarding it.. please common sense above all else.. but it seems like the ID and carpenter did not communicate. The carpenter literally main install. And when need to remove it ---- now giving 1001 and 1 reasons.

Exactly. Why are we accepting this as a standard?
We push for accoutability in medical services don't we?
We buy cars with warranty?
Why are we closing 1 eye for this -- another huge spending in our lives.


Communicated with them. And was informed that OK. Noted. Everything will be fine.
Already informed them where I would expect to put the fridge, cooking hob and stuff way before hand.
Even exact measurement was given to them. But... Nope. Still messed up.
Now need to remove panels to access power points
So WHY PUT THEM UP IN THE FIRST PLACE IF YOU KNEW IT WAS GOING TO OBSTRUCT THINGS.


It was like 10 - 50 - 25
Everything was fairly smooth at the beginning, so I had no issues with the payments.. But now.. Aish

Should've agreed to a payment by target achieved basis.

Please do lol.

Smart choice. Unfortunately I was in the mindset of paying a premium for less headache.
Now I ended up with a PREMIUM HEADACHE PRO PLUS.

All I will say is there's Vegetation involved in the name of the ID company haha.

Noted

I do not know if you know... But an interior designer isn't a one-man knowing all about renovation...

Are you aware that tiling a tile has its own ISO-certified standard of practices?

Do you think an interior designer know all this?...

Even architects isn't familiar with it... nor a property agent / developer... They may know, but they ain't true know-how experts in the fields...

Having the right screed layering / adhesive / water-proofing layer, the right tile installation method for mortar application has its own protocols (to prevent spot bonding and all that)...

In fact, not all tiles chosen by you works the same for all areas of application... And in the Malaysian industry (which I do not need to tell you how loose we are), there's a lot of con man / uneducated folks working in this line because the industry tends to permit low-education professionals with barely suffice training...

This is also why the Australian government officially certify plumbing and renovation jobs... because it literally is composed of bodies, regulations, updated rules, materials science, and all that which is used to train these professionals...

This is also why the Malaysian infrastructure is lagging behind in terms of decades... (And only just recently they enforced a minimum of SPM certification for property agents, as well as having them undergoing sales training in a once-upon-a-time era when uneducated / untrained folks could become one --- which spoils the real estate industry)...

As you shared, materials built upon are the most cheaply found building blocks to put up a decorate... and they do so because they may want you to tear it down for a new renovation so money is back into their pockets...

So as roofing...

So as piping... There's a complete pump engineering profession centered to the size of the piping, to the number of heads (resistance) for flow rate... Hell, even choosing the right pump according to the size of the house differ...

You need a team of specialised experts to advise you accordingly... Not a one-trick pony that Malaysian folks tend to think it's that easy...

If you do not believe me, feel free to Google any of these step-by-step...

Edit - Reason: Typo.

This post has been edited by Hastebreak: Jun 6 2025, 04:38 PM

I doubt we know each other. Unless you are working closely with MoF.

First of all, thanks for your effort in your reply. Much appreciated.

Of course we know they cannot know everything. No one does except quacks.

But at least you humbly demonstrated and stated the limitations of an interior designer.

So we begin by stating, what is an interior designer.

I malas, so I will just copy and paste from wiki:

"an interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordinates, and manages such enhancement projects. Interior design is a multifaceted profession that includes conceptual development, space planning, site inspections, programming, research, communicating with the stakeholders of a project, construction management, and execution of the design"

Which is a fair definition for me right?

The house tiling / water proofing / major plumbing and toiletries / electrical wiring, including fans/lights/and aircond have ALL BEEN COMPLETED before the unit was handed over to the ID team for interior furnishing.
Mine is already a completed renovated house.
Hence, the interior designer did not need to handle the task that you have elaborated.

Really, the bare minimum I would ask of them is to install furnishings without further damage to my unit. But even that was too much to ask these days I guess.

Most ID firms for home renovation cannot pakai one la in Malaysia.

Not only the execution terrible, the design and color scheme also terrible. All rojak style.

Only few select ones are good and you can see those in high end commercial or F&B. But these are very specialized and don't carry out renovation. And you need specialized ID contractors for these.

Those are for robot vacuum charging dock.

Or automatic pet food dispenser

Modern people problem

not exactly, it's at my new office and there are no robot vacuum or pet food dispenser here.

And i saw the same thing recently when my contractor was renovating my house and i have to tell him to quickly change to a higher position. Otherwise, i have to keep bending all my wires just to plug it in

Sometimes they install it for "future proof".

Got any recommendation for carpenter ah?

But I read your comment on furniture blocking the electrical outlets, you didn't see the drawings before execution? Shouldn't there be a 3d drawing with all the outlets and db etc before the actual execution ?

Yes. Malaysia is in crazy state of things where u need to pray hard the ppl u hired is actually human that able tondifferentiate right hand from left hand. Its that bad.

Normally in malaysia we tends to favor personal recommendation from known associate. ID for example we would look see friends/family friends house and see the end product then we ask if the ID is good. Hard to trust them based on online reviews and videos and what not. Also in Malaysia those that are good and reasonably priced will not bother to invest much effort into marketing.

Malaysia also in this twilight stage where there reslly is damn fucking a lot of unknown millionaire staying low profile. When a service is good, its almost guaranteed the cost will skyrocket to T1. Case example being, for B40 renovation probably cost 50k. Then u think 200k is reasonable high ceiling price to guarantee good result. But the truth is for the quality u expected the price probably goes up to 700k. The worst thing to be in Malaysia is being rich but not too rich. Entry level T20 will suffer a lot of injustice like this.

Got.
I was given assurance that the pre-existing power points will be brought out forwards and attached to the wall panels / furniture.
However, for some unknown reason, it was not done, and it was just covered up the panels.
Subsequently they expect me to bear extra cost of rectifying their mistakes.

I've repeated reminded them about it but it still happened

Lazy fellas.. maybe they sub out the job

As per what I suspected.
But they deny.

Oh and now they are playing the "ghosting" game and refusing to answer my calls.

When I was renovating my new place last year, i took 3-4 months of planning and going back and forth with the ID. Honestly if I didn't it would have turned out to be a big headache, and also I visited the site ever 1-2 days because from past experience i know the contractors won't follow 100% the plans, either due to the ID or main-con did not pass the latest revised plan or plain assumptions.

One of the most fucked up incident is the sub-con wanted to skip work when they forget to precut a hole thru my upper kitchen cabinets for my cooking hood and suggested to straight pipe to the yard window rendering it to be unable to open in future.

this sentence very eye opening. last time i reno house also used friend of a friend thinking that wont kena scam and will go smoothly
end up his worker caused accident to my car and then dont want to pay for repair
in the end have to eat the repair myself and also pay for the reno with no discount
want to kecam the friend also cannot
i really hate this world
i want to stop being a good guy and be a bad guy already