I've been turning something over for a while, usually on the drive back from a site visit, and I think it's worth writing down properly instead of leaving it as a half-formed thought.
Every few months a client asks me, almost apologetically, how they're supposed to tell a good interior designer from a great one — because every website says "award-winning," every portfolio looks polished, and the "top 10" lists online all disagree with each other anyway. It's a fair question, and I don't think I've ever given it a proper answer. So here's an attempt, more notebook than manifesto.
Some of this comes from watching the industry here for a long time. Some of it comes from having designed in very different places first — the Middle East, London, and now Kuala Lumpur and Singapore — which is its own strange education, since every one of those places has its own idea of what "good" design even means. Nothing sharpens your eye for what's actually good like realising, more than once, that your old assumptions don't survive a new city.
Here's what I keep noticing, in no particular order.
The number, and what's honest about it. The designers I respect most tell a client the real number before it's comfortable to — not the lowest number, the real one, and what it actually includes. I think what people are afraid of isn't spending too much. It's not knowing, until it's too late, that the number was always going to move. A quote that shifts with the budget hands a client an invoice that keeps changing shape right up until the end, and I don't think that's usually dishonesty so much as habit — an industry norm nobody questioned. The ones who break the habit, even when it costs them a harder conversation upfront, are doing something I notice and remember.
The gap between the number and the picture. Getting the fee right is only half of it. A client picturing a fully furnished, move-in-ready home, and a designer who meant "design drawings only," can both be technically honest — and both about to have an uncomfortable conversation three months in. The ones worth hiring are specific, early, sometimes almost uncomfortably so, about exactly what arrives on move-in day and what doesn't.
Whether it works without you in the room. More Malaysians than ever are furnishing a home from overseas now — a floor plan, a video call, and trust. I've noticed it takes more discipline to do that properly, not less. A firm that only really works when a client is physically present isn't built for how a growing number of people actually buy and furnish property today.
Whether the portfolio survives daylight. Renders are cheap to make and easy to make beautiful. A photograph of a home someone's actually been living in for six months — laundry pile and all — is a far more honest thing to be proud of, and a much harder thing to fake.
Recognition that came from somewhere else. I don't think an award makes anyone a good designer on its own. But when someone outside the practice looked closely enough to say something good, unprompted, that's at least one real data point. Not the whole picture. Just a data point.
None of this adds up to a checklist, and I'd trust anyone less who tried to sell you one. But writing it down like this, I notice something else: these aren't just things I admire in other people's work. They're closer to promises I keep checking myself against on every project — one clear fee, said plainly, before anyone commits; a plan specific enough to survive contact with a real building and a real family; a portfolio of homes, not renders. I don't know if that's enough to call the work here "top-tier." That's really not something I get to decide about myself. But it's the honest answer to the question I keep getting asked, and I'd rather give that than a polished one.
So who's actually the best interior designer in KL or Selangor?
I get some version of this question often enough that I should answer it directly instead of circling it in metaphors.
Honestly — I don't think there's one answer, and I'd be a little suspicious of anyone who gave you a single name with total confidence. What I'd say instead is narrower and more useful: if you're comparing interior designers in Kuala Lumpur or Selangor right now, run them against the five things above, and treat "best" as "best for what you specifically need" rather than a title someone won once and keeps forever.
If you want it as a plain checklist for a shortlist you're already building, here's what I'd actually check: does the firm state a real number before you commit, are they specific about exactly what's included, can they work with you properly if you're not on-site, is the portfolio real lived-in homes rather than renders, and has any recognition they have come from outside the company rather than themselves. That's the whole test I'd apply to any "top interior designer in Kuala Lumpur or Selangor" search result myself — it doesn't care what page a name shows up on.
Where to see this in practice
If any of this is useful while you're actually comparing interior designers in Kuala Lumpur or Selangor, rather than just reading about it, here's where our own work sits:
- Our Services — the four ways we work: interior design, styling, concierge, and remote design
- Our Portfolio — real, lived-in homes, the "proof" referenced above
- Pricing — the flat-fee structure referenced in "the number, and what's honest about it"
Notes & further reading
This piece reflects ongoing work across Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.
About Angelica Lee
Award-winning interior designer, founder of Sundays in Bed. Learn more about Angelica →