Interior designer at The Rainz

The Rainz is Exsim's three 35-storey towers of 624 freehold homes, beside the KESAS highway in Bukit Jalil, completed in 2018. There are three floor plans, from 1,513 to 1,930 sq ft.

Every plan has four bedrooms or more, and one room besides: a study in Type A, a helper's room in B and C. These are rooms on the scale of a house, so a house's habits can come too: outdoor shoes off in the foyer, the frying kept behind the kitchen door, an armchair that everyone knows is Grandpa's.

Each tower holds up to eight homes on a floor, and most of them are Type A. The lowest homes sit on the eighth floor, beside the podium garden, above seven floors of parking. The highest share the 35th with the sky garden and lounge.

Every plan gives two bedrooms a bathroom of their own, the master and the junior master. The master's has two basins, side by side, so two can get ready at the same time. In Type A, the two bathrooms sit back to back between those bedrooms, which keeps each one from hearing the other.

The rest follows the size. A and B set a round table for six near the kitchen. B adds the lanai, a glazed corner between the sofa and the balcony. C adds a fifth bedroom and a longer table. Each plan has a store cupboard as well; in C it runs along the corridor, set into the wall, long enough for brooms, an ironing board and the folding chairs.

From Exsim's brochure and plans for The Rainz, EdgeProp's 2021 report on the development, and StarProperty's 2015 launch report.

Exsim planned The Rainz for grandparents, parents and grandchildren living together, and the layouts carry it through. Three generations ask different things of one home: quiet after lunch, noise at bath time, every chair filled on a Sunday. So we settle early who naps, who takes calls, and who stays up late.

The junior master bedroom. Give it the standing of a second main bedroom, never the spare room. Its wardrobe as full as the master's, good reading light at both pillows, a mirror of its own. Whoever sleeps there, a grandmother or a grown son and his wife, it should never feel borrowed.

The study in Type A. It's drawn without a window, between the dining area and the kitchen. Daylight won't reach it, but quiet will. With warm lighting, pale walls and its own air-conditioning, it makes an office for long calls. It could equally hold shelves of books, a keyboard and a music stand, or the festive boxes that wait out the other eleven months.

The lanai in B and C. It sits indoors, glazed, off the living room and beside the balcony, out of the way of passing feet. For an older parent, that's the daytime room: a firm chair with a high seat, and the radio and the reading glasses close at hand. For small children, a rug to sprawl on and picture books within reach, watched from the sofa.

The smaller bedrooms. Two in A and B, three in C, sharing a bathroom off the corridor. For a young child, drawers at their own height, a hook for the school bag, and a floor kept clear for play. For a teenager, a daybed that seats friends after school, and the right to a closed door.

The sound between rooms. With three generations at home, quiet matters as much as space. A seal around each bedroom door, soft-close hinges on the cupboards nearby, and the television on a wall no bedroom shares. Small things, and the late film doesn't wake the early riser.

Every Rainz kitchen has a door that closes, with the yard and the laundry beyond it. In a home that cooks daily, that door is worth a great deal. The sambal stays behind it, and the sofa cushions never smell of lunch. The door holds the noise in as well: the blender, the extractor, the scrape of the wok.

In Type A, the kitchen is a galley by the entrance: the sink along one side, the hob along the other. In B and C, it sits across from the dining table, with the sink under a window, so the washing-up gets the daylight.

Exsim handed the kitchens over fitted, with cabinets, a hob, a cooker hood and a fridge. At launch, an oven, a washing machine and a dryer were listed too. After years of daily cooking, our first visit shows what has held up. We look hardest at the doors beside the sink, where the water lands.

Sound cabinets needn't go. Keep the frames and replace the faces: doors, worktop and handles. That makes far less dust than starting again, and the kitchen reads as new. A hood that has fought the wok since 2018 is usually the first thing to go.

A big household cooks in big quantities. Rice for eight, a steamer wide enough for a whole fish, a second fridge for Chinese New Year. So the deep drawers go to the heavy pots, low and within reach, and the good plates live closest to the table. The second fridge gets its own space and socket from the start.

At the table, a round one shares the dishes from the middle. Set a lazy Susan in it, and the grandparents reach every dish without having to ask.

The yard does the work a back kitchen did in a house: the washing, the drying, the mop and bucket. Shelves above the machines, and a pulley rack for the laundry, keep its floor clear.

From Exsim's brochure plans and specification, and StarProperty's launch report of 2015.

At launch, Exsim specified glass for up to 60% of each tower's face. Inside, that reads as long runs of window along the bedrooms, and a living room opening to the balcony at its corner. Plenty of daylight comes in, and on a clear afternoon, plenty of warmth with it.

With this much glass, the inner walls do the heavy work. Wardrobes, bookshelves and the television belong there, and the window walls stay clear for light and air. A low bench under a bedroom window holds the guest pillows and the photo albums, and blocks none of the light.

The curtains become part of the walls. Hang them from a track set into the ceiling, from end to end of the glass. Drawn back, they leave every pane clear. Where the glass faces the afternoon sun, a lined fabric takes the heat off the room and spares the air-conditioner some work.

Strong light fades things slowly: a rug, a timber tabletop, a silk cushion. So we keep the pieces you treasure out of the afternoon sun, and choose fabrics that can take the light. Turn the rug once in a while, and it fades evenly.

Most panes are clear, with frosted, fixed or top-hung ones where the plan calls for them. A top-hung window is hinged at the top and opens outward from the bottom. In a passing shower, it can usually stay open a crack, and the room keeps breathing. So we keep those windows within reach, never behind a wardrobe or a tall shelf.

From Exsim's brochure and StarProperty's 2015 launch report.

The Rainz was planted as an urban rainforest: some 250 trees and 1,600 shrubs, many of them native, with Kempas and Pulai among them. Harvested rainwater helps to keep them green.

On the eighth floor: a scented garden, a forest trail, an eco-pond and the pool. On the 35th: a sky garden, a lounge, a barbecue terrace. And between them, the homes.

On the podium, a herb garden grows lemongrass, pandan and chillies, and residents may pick them. So the kitchen wants room for what you carry back up. A jar for lemongrass by the hob, a glass of water for the pandan, a bowl for chillies ripening on the sill.

Between them, the gardens give the day a rhythm: a slow lap of the forest trail before dinner, a pause by the eco-pond, then the lift back up with a stalk of lemongrass.

The garden can lend the home a palette, too. Leaf green on one wall, the brown of bark in a timber table, the grey of a wet stone path in a rug. One room carries it, and the rest stay quiet.

And a few plants of your own. With so much glass, a bright corner of the lanai or a bedroom window suits a fiddle-leaf fig or a monstera. Pots on saucers, so the floor stays dry.

From EdgeProp's 2021 report on The Rainz's landscape, designed by Hoda Design and given a Special Mention in the EdgeProp-ILAM Malaysia Sustainable Landscape Awards 2021, and from Exsim's brochure.

Exsim's specification put air-conditioners in every bedroom, the living room and the study, and a shower screen and hot water in every bathroom. The master bathroom's tiles run to the ceiling, and the floors of the living room, dining area and kitchen are tiled. At launch, every bedroom was also specified with a built-in wardrobe.

Wardrobes. If the frames are square and the doors still close true, keep them. Inside, drawers where there were only shelves, and a rail moved to the right height, make them work like new. And nothing heavy leaves by the lift.

Air-conditioners. A service tells us which of the original units still run cool and quiet, and which simply need cleaning. Tired ones come out early, so no new ceiling is ever cut open for them.

Floors. Tiled floors wear well, and a deep clean or fresh grout often brings them back. Change a floor only where you'd like a different feel underfoot. In a bedroom, a rug does that with none of the dust.

Bathrooms. Tiles to the ceiling can stay. A new vanity, mirror, taps and light change the room far more than new walls would. Fresh seals on the shower screens, and they close quietly again.

Doors. The front door is solid timber at its core, and the bedroom doors are timber too. Sanded and refinished, or painted a deeper colour with new handles, they can stay. New hinges stop the creak.

Walls. Fresh paint, warm white in the bedrooms and a deeper shade in the study, changes the feel of a room faster than anything else.

Lighting. It's the quickest thing to renew. Warmer bulbs throughout and a dimmer on the main living-room light, and the evenings soften at once.

Keep what still works, change what you notice every day, and leave the rest alone.

From the specification in Exsim's brochure, and StarProperty's 2015 launch report.

The Rainz's management office has its own terms for renovating. We get them on paper first, and every date we give you follows from them.

If you're living in through the works, we plan them in stages, around the people at home. The rooms you can spare go first: the study, the helper's room, a child's bedroom. The bedrooms follow, one by one, and everyone still sleeps in a bed of their own. The kitchen comes last, and is planned to move fastest, because three generations can only do without a kitchen for so long.

On the first day, we photograph every room and the common corridor outside. Should a scuff appear later, there's a record of how things were. Boards then cover the floor along the corridor from the lift, and stay down until the works are done.

Each home has a video intercom to the guardhouse, so a delivery or a contractor is announced before reaching your floor. On works days, we tell the guardhouse who to expect, and when.

With grandparents at home, one room stays quiet and dust-free throughout. Dust screens go up at every doorway, and the noisiest jobs stay within the management's permitted hours.

If the family can spend a few weeks elsewhere, the works run in one go, and sooner. Either way, each week you'll know whose room is next, and when they'll have it back.

KM1 East, Berjaya Land's two blocks from 2014, is another Bukit Jalil building with room for a big household. So is Sunway Flora Residences, completed in 2026, where some plans add a junior suite. Everything else nearby is in our guide to Bukit Jalil, and the wider city in Kuala Lumpur.