Interior designer at The Avare
One wing of the butterfly, yours.
Behind all that glass, a home that’s entirely yours.
Thoughtfully designed around the way you live, and what you’d like to spend.
What does a 3,800 sq ft wing of glass on Lorong Kuda ask of its designer?
Just two homes to a floor, each about 3,800 sq ft behind a wall of low-E glass, and most of them first lived in from 2009. So the work is renewing what has worn, while designing with the glass rather than against it.
Sundays in Bed plans and oversees home renovations from a small studio in Kuala Lumpur. We haven’t designed a home at The Avare so far; for yours, the fee is set room by room and written down before work begins.
The Avare is a butterfly-plan tower on Lorong Kuda, off Jalan Tun Razak, among the embassies. Each floor splits into two wings, one home in each.
It is one freehold tower of 41 storeys and 78 homes, designed by aQidea Architects and completed in 2009.
The Avare’s units run from 3,800 to about 7,600 sq ft built-up; almost all have four bedrooms.
- 3,800 sq ftFour en-suite bedrooms, a maid’s room, social and wet kitchens
- About 7,600 sq ftWhole floors on levels 16 and 38, and duplex penthouses with pools
Four lifts serve just two homes a floor, so the lift opens almost at your own door, and the foyer deserves to be treated as a room.
A typical home here is bigger than many KL houses. The risk isn’t clutter; it’s rooms that echo. We size the sofas, rugs and dining table to the real floor area, then decide what the fourth bedroom is for.
Most homes were handed over in 2009, and some have been renovated since. What sits behind the walls and above the ceiling decides the budget, so we look there before anyone mentions marble.
Which decisions in a 2009 Avare home shape the budget before any finish?
The glass, the ceiling and the two kitchens. In homes this large and this age, those three shape the budget long before any finish does.
The glass wall. Low-E glass, trimmed with stainless-steel sunshades, wraps the living side. It tempers the heat but not the glare, so curtains come in layers and sofas face into the room. We never plan a room around a view.
The ceiling. Cooling here comes from a central chilled-water system, whose fan-coil units usually sit above the ceiling. Any new ceiling must keep access to them, and the lights are set out around their grilles, not across them.
Two kitchens. The social kitchen has room for a table that seats eight; the wet kitchen behind it takes the wok and the smells. Decide which one the family really lives in, then give that one the better joinery and light.
Five bathrooms. All four bedrooms are en-suite, and the helper has a bathroom too. Original fittings and waterproofing are where 2009 shows first, yet not every bathroom needs designing. Our estimates leave one out.
What still works. Wardrobes and storage were built into the walls here. Where the carcasses are sound, we re-front them rather than rip them out, and leave the maid’s quarters and service entrance doing the job they were planned for.
What does it cost to renew and furnish a 3,800 sq ft Avare 4+1?
For a typical 4+1 here, the Sundays in Bed design fee is estimated at RM41,135–48,265; for a duplex penthouse, RM51,830–58,960. Your final fee depends on the rooms you choose, and is agreed in writing before we begin.
With our fee and Curated finishes (Commune, Cellini, Poet Living), a typical 4+1 at The Avare comes to about RM363k–635k in all.
Worn kitchens and bathrooms first; the glass and the chilled water stay. Pick your home, then tick only the rooms you’d like drawn. Our fee is an estimate, and each range guides renovation and furniture at one finish level until contractors send quotes.
4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and the dry and wet kitchens: 10 rooms at RM3,565, plus the open-plan living and dining at RM5,485. The foyer and utility yard are designed free.
Within each level, the low end is the essentials; the high end adds extras such as a feature wall, LED strips and a kitchen island.
What the two levels mean
Curated. Melamine and laminate, sintered stone, a plaster ceiling. Furniture from Commune, Cellini, Fella Design, Dezign District, Poet Living, Big Brain, Gudang, Crown Livin and Dadswood.
Bespoke. Bespoke laminate, detailed joinery, a ceiling with cornice. Furniture from Space Furniture, Tekni, BoConcept, King Living, Ambient Living, Stanzo, Forest Furniture, Roche Bobois, XTRA, Urban Edge, Molteni&C, Nostaloft, Flexform, Janine and Chesters Collection.
| Home | Curated | Bespoke |
|---|---|---|
| 4+1 3,800 sq ft Estimated fee RM41,135–48,265 | RM322k–594k | RM592k–1.21M |
| Duplex penthouse About 7,600 sq ft, two floors Estimated fee RM51,830–58,960 | RM389k–747k | RM704k–1.49M |
Read the lower figure as the usual brief here: living and dining, the social and wet kitchens, four bedrooms and four of the five bathrooms. The upper adds two rooms, say the helper’s bathroom, or the maid’s room turned into a study or store.
At Curated, furniture comes from Commune, Cellini and Poet Living; at Bespoke, from Space Furniture, BoConcept and Molteni&C.
The 4+1 row prices both kitchens and four of the five bathrooms, and leaves the maid’s room untouched. For the penthouse, sale listings give five bedrooms and seven bathrooms; we price six of them.
These are estimates as of October 2026 rather than a quote, and we check your own layout when we visit.
Every range prices wardrobes, both kitchens’ cabinets, cooking appliances, laundry and air-conditioning as new. The Avare cools with central chilled water, so that last item rarely applies in full; keep sound built-in wardrobes too, and the figure drops.
Furnishing to let? Avare 4+1s are advertised at RM8,400–15,000 monthly. A lighter, hard-wearing fit-out at our Essential level, quicker to finish and easy to keep tenant-ready, is one possibility, with furniture from Ikea, SSF Home and Harvey Norman. The design fee is the same at every level.
Renovation and furniture at Essential, before our fee: 4+1 RM183k–308k · Duplex penthouse RM223k–389k.
How we arrive at the fee. Every bedroom, bathroom or kitchen we design is RM3,565; the living and dining together are RM5,485. With two kitchens and five bathrooms in a typical home here, the rooms you leave alone are what bring it down.
The total is settled with you in writing before any work, then paid in instalments. Because it’s separate from the contractors’ bills, picking Italian marble for the master en-suite leaves it unchanged.
The spending limit is yours. Name it at the start and we design within it, whether that means renewing the whole wing or only the two kitchens.
Who keeps a renovation here in step, from first call to finished rooms?
Whoever answers your first call about The Avare stays with you to the styled, finished rooms. We draw the plans and manage the job; the building work goes to contractors you pick, after we’ve collected their prices and set them side by side.
- First, a conversation FreeA typical 4+1, a whole floor or a penthouse; who lives there and who comes to stay; what an earlier owner changed; and roughly what you’d like to spend.
- A visit to your floor RM200, waived if you go ahead with usTape measure out in every room, then a look above the ceiling at the fan-coil units, a check of the seals along the glass, every tap run, and a list of what should stay.
- What we’ll do, in writingRooms, budget and fee are agreed on paper first. Then the design: plans, lighting set out around the air-conditioning grilles, joinery, and curtains for the long glass walls.
- Drawings contractors can priceA full set, detailed enough for like-for-like quotes. We gather several, take you through the differences line by line, and the choice of builder stays with you.
- Works, then the finishing touchesWe book lifts and trades with the management, keep disruption away from the other home on your floor, check every stage against the drawings, and dress the rooms last.
The management office, DBKL, a central chilled-water system and one neighbour on your floor: a renovation here has its own choreography. Keeping every part of it in step is what you’re hiring us for. The full process
Permits on Lorong Kuda. The Avare sits within Kuala Lumpur, so the renovation permit is issued by DBKL. The application is made by your licensed contractor, with the building management’s consent in writing.
Nothing public sets out The Avare’s renovation deposit, permitted hours or how the lifts are booked. So the first thing we request from management is its current rulebook, before any pricing, and the works are planned to fit it.
Most homes here share one plan. Will mine look like the rest?
It needn’t. The plan repeats up the tower, wing after wing, but who cooks, who stays and what you’ve collected never repeat.
So we start with your household: the grandparent who visits for a month, the child at the piano, the dinners for twelve that spill out of the social kitchen. A beautiful room is easy. One that could only be yours is the work.
What an older home at The Avare usually needs
- KeepThe envelopeThe glass wall, its sunshades and the chilled-water cooling: we design with them
- AdaptKitchens, en-suitesTwo kitchens and five bathrooms, renewed where 2009 fittings have worn
- AddLight, softnessLighting planned around the ceiling units, and layered curtains for the glass
The Avare’s handover specification isn’t published, and plenty of homes here have been redone since 2009; your own is what we assess on site.
What renovations of this size have cost in KLCC
Until we’ve designed a home here, the honest benchmark is the published renovation records on our KLCC renovation cost index. Across 18 of them, the median is RM158 per sq ft.
The closest in size is a 3,973 sq ft five-bedroom at The Pearl Residence, recorded at RM900,000. Two Suria Stonor homes of 2,700–3,300 sq ft ran RM600,000–1,000,000.
Scaled to 3,800 sq ft, the KLCC median comes to roughly RM600,000. Set that beside the Curated range for a 4+1 above; homes that keep sound built-in joinery usually spend less.
Nearby, with their own pages: KLCC, Bukit Bintang & TRX · U-Thant Residence · Star Residences · Oxley Towers KLCC
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Angelica has made my condo unit into a home. She is professional, decisive, and yet she truly listens to our wishes and needs.
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The Avare questions, answered
Can we add split air-conditioners to a home at The Avare?
Probably not, and management decides. The building cools with central chilled water, and its outer walls are glass, so outdoor units have nowhere obvious to go. Servicing the fan-coil units above the ceiling usually works better; we confirm with management first.
What does a 3,800 sq ft home here cost to renovate and furnish?
Usually RM322k–594k with Curated pieces (Commune, Cellini, Poet Living), or RM592k–1.21M at Bespoke (Space Furniture, BoConcept, Molteni&C), before our fee. KLCC’s published renovation records show a median RM158 per sq ft, near RM600,000 for this size.
Should we keep both kitchens?
Usually, yes. The social kitchen, with space for a table of eight, is where the family gathers; the wet kitchen behind it takes the heavy cooking and the smoke. We often renew the social kitchen fully and refit the wet one simply.
Can the maid’s room become a study?
It can. It was planned for a helper, beside the wet kitchen and the service entrance, and many families still use it so. If yours doesn’t, it makes a good store, laundry or study; designed as a study, it adds one room, RM3,565.
How do you dress a wall of glass?
In layers: a sheer for soft daylight, and a dim-out behind it for sleep and afternoon sun, on tracks recessed into the ceiling where possible. Long runs are often motorised. The facade’s corners are rounded, so every run is measured on site.
How do you plan a duplex penthouse with its own pool?
Start with the stair and the terrace. Settle which level holds the living rooms and which the bedrooms, then treat the pool deck as a room: shade, lighting, furniture that can take sun and chlorine. The terrace waterproofing is checked before anything sits on it.
Ready to renew your wing of The Avare?
A typical 4+1, a whole floor or a penthouse: send us the floor plan, a note of what’s changed since 2009, and the figure you’d like to stay within. The first call costs nothing, and an estimated fee reaches you in writing, with no obligation.
Free · your fee is agreed in writing before we start