Interior designer at The Reya, KL East

A large household needs two things from a home: a table with a chair for everyone, and a door each of you can close. The Reya was planned for both, with grandparents and grandchildren in mind. Sime Darby Property's tower will hold 480 homes, freehold, in two wings. None has fewer than three bedrooms, or fewer than two kitchens: one dry, one wet.

Wing A rises 30 storeys and Wing B 32, with 240 homes in each. On most floors, eight front doors share a wing's lift lobby, and no plan draws a private one. So the lobby is everyone's, and home begins once your door shuts behind you. Parking follows the size of the plan: two bays with a Type A, two or three with a B, three with a C, enough for the studio's car too.

An A1 lines its three bedrooms up along the front, so each one wakes to its own window. In an A2, a third bathroom eases the mornings when everyone is up at once. In the corner A3, a second balcony gives you somewhere else to take your tea. And in a Type B, the main bathroom's two basins let two of you get ready without taking turns.

Space is rarely what runs short in these plans. The real work is deciding which room belongs to whom, and where everyone's things will live.

The Reya steps up a hillside. Its 6.39-acre site is terraced at the foot of the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge. The ridge runs for more than 14 km and takes in Bukit Tabur. Sime Darby Property is keeping 47% of the site's natural forest. From your windows, that means trees, the city, or both.

Your view depends on your wing, your floor and your corner of the tower. Many Type B and C homes face the trees. Some city-facing homes in Wing A meet the full afternoon sun. A corner home may have both: the forest from one room, the city from the next. We read it first from the plans for your wing and floor. Then we stand in the rooms to be sure, before choosing a fabric, a sofa colour or the wall for the television.

On the forest side, heavy blinds are rarely needed. A sheer at the glass is usually enough, and with trees, not windows, across the way, the curtains can often stay open all day. Natural materials sit easily beside the view, and the sofa can turn to the green, with the television on another wall.

On the city side, some rooms want more. A sun blind cuts the glare and keeps the view. Lined curtains darken a bedroom when someone sleeps late. After dark, the city lights up beyond the glass, and there's little reason to cover it before bed.

Either way, the room is planned from the window inwards.

Sime Darby Property's brochure and website for The Reya, for the site and its forest.

In a Reya home, a few rooms could each be several things: a Type A's study, a Type B's junior suite, every plan's dry kitchen. Once each has a purpose, the other rooms follow, almost on their own. Who stays over, who studies late, who cooks for whom: the answers shape a room more than any palette.

If one small room must do three things. Every Type A has a study, small and with its own window; in an A1, it lies between the two bathrooms. An office, a homework room and a guest bed each want their own light and storage, so we choose one first. For an office, room for two screens and a cupboard where the printer lives. For homework, a desk two children can share, and a shelf each for their books. For a visitor, a daybed with drawers beneath, so the room is a study again by Monday morning.

If the junior suite is for a parent. In a Type B, it sits across the living room from the other three bedrooms, with its own bathroom: privacy, without a separate entrance. We plan grab rails, softer lighting and a shower that's level with the floor, from the start. Planned that early, the rails can match the taps and the towel bars, so nobody reads them as rails. In another family, the same room is a teenager's, far enough from the rest to keep the music to itself.

If a big household comes home all at once. Three to five bedrooms means a great many shoes, school bags, prams and suitcases. With up to eight homes sharing the lobby outside, none of it should wait beyond your door. So the foyer gets a cabinet to the ceiling: a shelf for each of you, the children's low, a grandparent's at hand height, nobody stretching. It comes before almost anything else we draw. A tall space at one end takes the pram; the suitcases go up high until the next trip.

Every Reya plan gives the cooking two rooms. Behind a door is the wet kitchen, made for the heavy work, with a yard at its back. The dry kitchen shares the open living space, in sight of everyone. With the frying already shut away, the dry side is free to be something gentler.

Smoke and spatter keep to the wet side. Curry leaves crackle as they hit the oil, fish fries for lunch, and a pot of bones bubbles away until dinner. That's where the deep sink belongs, and the hood that works hardest. A family this size often runs two fridges: one by the dry side for milk and fruit, the other in the wet kitchen, full of the week's fish and greens.

If the family's best cook is also its oldest. We plan the wet kitchen around their reach. The counter at a height that suits them, the spices beside the hob, and a burner big enough for the largest pot of the year.

The dry side is for the quieter rituals. Coffee before anyone is properly awake, and half-boiled eggs at the counter. Where a Type B or C plan draws an island, homework spreads along it: exercise books at one end, the rice cooker clicking over to warm, and someone stirring behind the door.

Seen from the sofa, a dry kitchen's clutter shows. Tall doors can hide the toaster, the flasks and a grandparent's pill boxes, and a drawer by the fridge keeps the school notices. Then a soft light over the counter, for the last kettle of the night.

Smoke on one side of the door, homework on the other.

A Type C is two homes behind one entrance. Step in, and the main foyer opens on one side, the studio's door on the other. The main home has four bedrooms and the rooms a family shares, so the studio is extra, never borrowed from them. Behind that door sit a kitchenette and a bathroom, for the studio alone.

So we write two briefs. One is for the family home, and everything a household brings to it. The other is small and self-contained: who will sleep in the studio, what they'll cook, and how much they'll need to keep.

For grandparents. A front door to call theirs, facing the family's across the hall. Close enough to hear the grandchildren come home, and far enough to nap through it. Their mornings can start early without waking anyone. We plan the studio's bathroom as we would a Type B's junior suite, rails and all.

For a graduate back home. Above all, they want their own key, and the freedom to come in late. The kitchenette takes the late suppers, so the main kitchen stays tidy. A bed, a wardrobe and a desk, and still room to sit with a friend.

For work. Clients come through the shared entrance and step straight into the studio, never passing a school bag. A desk stands where a bed would be, and the kitchenette makes the coffee for both of you.

One entrance, two front doors: a household that can be together at dinner, and apart by bedtime.

A big household's week runs on short distances here. The Reya stands off Middle Ring Road 2 in Desa Melawati, inside KL East, Sime Darby Property's 159-acre township. KYS KL East International School is 0.7 km away, near enough for the school run to leave room for breakfast together. Run out of milk before dinner, and KL East Mall is 0.3 km down the road.

Saturdays can start in KL East Park, 0.7 km off and 53 acres in all: a bicycle for the children, a picnic mat for everyone else, and home before the heat. Melawati Mall, 3.1 km away, takes the bigger weekly shop. Columbia Asia Hospital is 4.6 km, worth knowing with a parent at home. When the week heads into town, there's the LRT at Gombak or Taman Melati, and the Gombak terminal for longer journeys.

The podium is planned for all ages: a children's pool with water play, an infinity pool for laps, and a jacuzzi for the grown-ups once the children are out of the water. Two barbecue gardens wait for the satay on a public holiday. On level 5, a gym and a yoga room, for a quiet stretch before the day begins.

Downstairs, a parcel room will hold the deliveries until someone is home to collect them. Outside, a garden trail and a community herb garden are planned too: an evening walk for a grandparent, never far from the lift.

Distances and the planned facilities from Sime Darby Property's brochure for The Reya.

The Reya is due in July 2029, and your design can be all but settled on paper long before then. We work from Sime Darby Property's plans for your type. So your first months with the keys go on inspection, quotes and the works, not on drawing. Pieces that take months to make, a sofa or the lights, can be ordered to arrive as the contractors leave. Plenty of rooms, and time to plan each one.

With the keys in your hand, walk the empty rooms while every step still echoes. Note each defect for Sime Darby Property in writing, and photograph it, while nothing has been touched. Found then, a fault is plainly the developer's, not your contractor's.

A new tower is a busy place in its first year, with neighbours fitting out all around you. Tiles for one floor, a wardrobe in pieces for another, a sofa waiting its turn: all of it shares your wing's lifts. So we find out the management's lift times early, and book ours the moment bookings open.

Once the keys are in, the finished drawings go out for quotes. From there, the work follows a written order, from the dusty jobs to the fine ones, and you'll always know which room comes next.

If your home comes with wardrobes, air-conditioners or kitchen cabinets, they'll be in your sale agreement. We read it with you now, clause by clause, and check each line in the empty rooms at handover. Whatever comes, if it does its job, it stays, and the design works around it. Your budget starts where the developer's work stops, and nothing new goes to waste.

For a household this size, the foyer storage, the wardrobes and the dry kitchen tend to come first: they're used from the very first morning. Every bathroom will be brand new, and can stay exactly as it is.

Keep: the two kitchens as they're divided, and the plan as drawn; neither is often worth moving. Adapt: the study, the junior suite or the studio, each with its one job decided. Add: foyer storage first, and sheers or blinds to suit each room's view. Check: the sale agreement's list, how high each ceiling is, and how much sun each window gets.

From Sime Darby Property's plans, brochure and advertising notice for The Reya.

The Reya's nearest neighbours on our site are houses, not towers. 19Trees, in Taman Melawati, has 222 terrace houses, each three floors high, and comes under MPAJ rather than DBKL. Sierra Hijauan keeps 310 houses, mostly link villas, behind one gate near the forest at Ukay Perdana. Every other nearby building we've written about is on our Ampang page, with a short note on each.