Interior Design Petaling Jaya (PJ)
Blaine Robert Design designs and builds homes across Petaling Jaya — from the older detached houses of Sections 5, 16 and 17 and the semi-detached streets of the SS series to the newer high-rise along the LDP at Kelana Jaya and Ara Damansara. One studio draws the plan, sources every material and builds the house, and our work in PJ includes a landed home at Tropicana finished in 2026, a multi-generational house in Kelana Jaya, a home designed at PJ Midtown and a semi-detached house delivered by our construction team.
- Older PJ Sections renovated or rebuilt; SS-series terraces and semi-Ds extended; Kelana Jaya and Ara Damansara units fitted out
- MBPJ building-plan submissions and minor-works permits prepared as part of the project
- PJ work: Tropicana (completed 2026), the Kelana Jaya house, a home designed at PJ Midtown, a semi-detached house by our construction team
- Renovate-or-rebuild answered from a survey before design starts
- Design and construction under one contract, shown in 3D before anything is ordered
We Design and Build in Petaling Jaya
Petaling Jaya is two housing markets wearing one name. The first is the city Malaysia’s post-war planners laid out — Sections numbered rather than named, detached and semi-detached houses on lots that could not be assembled today, the oldest of them — Section 5 was developed from 1963 — now past sixty and on their second or third owner. The second is the city that grew around it: the SS-series townships of the seventies and eighties, and a high-rise tier along the Damansara–Puchong Highway that is still being built. A studio that works in PJ has to be fluent in both, because the questions are different. An owner in Section 17 is deciding whether to renovate or rebuild; an owner at Ara Damansara is deciding what to keep of a developer’s kitchen.
Blaine Robert Design is a luxury interior design firm in Kuala Lumpur and a turnkey design and build studio. We design the space, we source it and we build it — and in Petaling Jaya that has meant a landed home at Tropicana completed this year, a house in Kelana Jaya that Tatler Asia toured, a home designed at PJ Midtown, and construction work on a semi-detached house in the city. The same team would work on yours; how we approach a high-rise unit is set out in our condo interior design guide.
Our Interior Design Services in Petaling Jaya
Our luxury residential interior design service, applied to both of Petaling Jaya’s housing markets.
Replanning an Older PJ House
The houses in Sections 5, 16 and 17 were drawn for a different way of living — a formal front room, a dark middle, a kitchen at the back for staff. Our first job on one of these is the plan: which walls are structural, where the light can be brought in, how the ground floor becomes one generous living and dining space with the everyday kitchen inside it and a wet kitchen behind. You see the new plan in 3D before anything is ordered.
Rebuild or Renovate — Answered Before Design Starts
On a sixty-year-old PJ house the honest question is whether the structure is worth keeping. We survey first — foundations, roof, the state of the concrete, the wiring and plumbing that will have to be replaced regardless — and give you a clear answer with the reasoning, so the decision to renovate or to rebuild is made on evidence rather than on hope.
Fitting Out a PJ High-Rise
A unit at Kelana Jaya, Ara Damansara or Damansara Perdana arrives with the developer’s finishes and the management’s rules. We read both before drawing: what is under warranty and should stay, what may be removed, what the management office requires before works start. The design is then built around the parts worth keeping, not against them.
Materials, Finishes and Detail
Three decades of Blaine Robert’s craft, sourced across Asia-Pacific, sits behind every material decision. In a PJ landed home that means specifying for climate and for family life — humidity-stable timber, sealed stone in wet areas, joinery built for storage a household actually has. In a high-rise it means finishes that read as a whole with what the developer left.
Construction and Site Delivery
Our construction team builds what our designers drew. On landed property in PJ that includes the structural work, extensions and external elements — the car porch, the garden wall, the rear extension — under one programme with the interior. One contract, one site team, one person answerable for both.
Petaling Jaya Interiors, Room by Room
Living and dining in an older PJ house usually want joining rather than dividing, and opening the rear to the garden is often the single best move on a deep lot. Kitchens repay the most attention — a proper wet and dry split, stone worktops, extraction that suits how Malaysian families cook. Bedrooms want quiet, cross-ventilation where the plan allows it, and storage planned around real contents. Bathrooms are rebuilt properly, with the waterproofing done once and inspected.
Renovating a Home in Petaling Jaya
Petaling Jaya’s homes fall into three tiers, and which one you own decides what can be done, what MBPJ asks for, and where the money goes.
The Older Landed Sections
Sections 5, 16 and 17 hold the houses that make PJ worth writing a page about: detached and semi-detached homes on lots large enough to replan freely. Most are past the age where a cosmetic renovation makes sense. Roofs, waterproofing, electrical distribution, plumbing and aluminium are at the end of their first life, and a renovation that paints over them pays for them twice. We list what has to be rebuilt regardless of design, then design on top of that list.
The SS Series
SS2, SS22 and the townships around them are terraces and semi-Ds from the seventies and eighties — narrower lots, party walls, and extensions that have often already been built once. The work here is usually a full internal renovation with a rear or first-floor extension, and the constraints are setbacks, the neighbour on the other side of the wall, and what MBPJ will approve.
The High-Rise Tier
Kelana Jaya, Ara Damansara and Damansara Perdana are fit-out projects rather than renovations. The management corporation sets the terms — deposit, working hours, worker registration, wet-works rules, what may be removed from a unit still inside its defect period — and the design is written to those terms from the first drawing.
Approvals and Neighbours
Structural alterations, extensions and changes to a façade in Petaling Jaya are MBPJ building-plan submissions before they are designs — lodged through a registered architect, engineer or draughtsman, with a fourteen-working-day decision on additions and alterations — and the lighter work is not exempt either. MBPJ’s own list for its minor-works permit runs to floor and wall tiles, painting, rewiring and interior fit-out such as kitchen cabinetry; the owner can apply for that permit and the council decides it within twenty-four working hours. As a design and build studio we prepare and manage whichever submission the scope needs as part of the project. In a high-rise the management body’s approval comes first, and because MBPJ handles strata differently from landed, we confirm the council route for the specific building.
How Long a Petaling Jaya Renovation Takes
A full renovation of an older PJ landed home runs longer than a high-rise fit-out, and the difference is mostly structure and approvals. Design — survey, concept, 3D, drawings and specification — comes first and is agreed before anything is ordered. MBPJ approval, where the scope needs it, runs alongside the detailed design rather than after it.
Construction on a landed home then moves through structure, wet works, first fix, joinery, finishes and second fix; on a high-rise the same sequence is shorter because there is no structure and no external work. We give you a programme at the start of design and report against it every week. Where a rebuild is the answer instead of a renovation, the programme changes shape entirely, and we say so before you decide.
Interior Design and Renovation Cost in Petaling Jaya
What a Petaling Jaya project costs is set by five things, in roughly this order: the house type and its age (a sixty-year-old detached house in Section 16 carries structural and services work a five-year-old Ara Damansara unit does not); the scope (full renovation, rebuild, or fit-out); the specification tier of the stone, joinery, sanitaryware and lighting; the amount of external and structural work on a landed lot; and whether the project is design-only or design and build. We fix the figure with you at the start of design and specify to it — the number is a decision made before the drawings, not a discovery made after them.
There are four common ways interior designers charge in Malaysia: a percentage of the works, a fee per square foot, a fixed design fee, and design and build under one contract. We work on the last, because it is the only one where the person who drew the house is answerable for building it. How those variables behave on a landed lot is set out in our bungalow design guide.
Under One Roof
Most firms in Malaysia design or build. We do both — an interior design studio and a construction team inside one company, which is what lets a Petaling Jaya project run to a single programme.
Interior Design
Concept, space planning, 3D visualisation, materials and lighting — the full design scope, led by senior designers.
Construction
Wet works, ceilings, electrical, structural alterations and finishing carried out by our own site teams. Managed construction keeps the drawings and the build answering to one company.
Featured Projects in Petaling Jaya
Our completed homes at Tropicana and in Kelana Jaya sit in Petaling Jaya itself, alongside a home we designed at PJ Midtown, and our construction team has delivered a semi-detached house in the city. Across the Kuala Lumpur line, our work in Damansara Heights and TTDI is described on its own pages.
A home at PJ Midtown designed by our team as one scheme, from the plan to the last light fitting.
A completed multi-generational home in Kelana Jaya, designed and built by our team and featured in a Tatler Asia home tour — the living hall opened to the garden the way an older PJ ground floor can be.
Our newest completed landed home, finished in 2026: a full scheme where the stone, the built-in storage and the lighting were drawn together and delivered by the same site team, minutes from Kota Damansara and Damansara Utama.
A landed home at Tropicana completed in 2026, a home in Kelana Jaya, a scheme designed at PJ Midtown, and construction work on a PJ semi-detached house: the proof for both of Petaling Jaya’s markets is already in the portfolio, and the same team would work on yours. We are one studio for design and construction, which in an older PJ house is the difference between a plan that survives contact with the structure and one that does not. You see the house in 3D before it is built. The figure is fixed at the start of design and the specification is chosen to it. And where the honest answer is to rebuild rather than renovate, we say so before you have spent on design.
Why Choose Blaine Robert Design as Your Petaling Jaya Interior Designer
A landed home at Tropicana completed in 2026, a home in Kelana Jaya, a scheme designed at PJ Midtown, and construction work on a semi-detached house — all in Petaling Jaya itself.
Featured by Tatler Asia
Tatler Asia published a home tour of a modern bungalow we designed in Selangor — where, in Tatler’s words, everything was bespoke and custom-made by Blaine Robert Design — and carried Blaine Robert’s design tips for a luxe bedroom.
Loud Luxury, Delivered Under One Roof
Interior design and construction sit inside one company, so the wardrobe drawn in your 3D visual is the wardrobe that gets made. One contract, one schedule, one accountable team.
Recognition to match: Luxury Lifestyle Awards 2021, ATAP Design Awards 2021, Qanvast Design Awards 2021 and 2023, MIIP 2022, and ISO 9001:2015 certified quality management.
A Studio That Works Across Borders
Blaine Robert is an invited judge of the PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards, and the studio was named in PropertyGuru’s 10 Best Interior Design Firms in Malaysia, 2026 edition. Petaling Jaya sits inside a practice that works across Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and beyond.
Frequently Asked Questions About Interior Design in Petaling Jaya
Have you completed projects in Petaling Jaya?
Yes. Our completed work in Petaling Jaya includes a landed home at Tropicana finished in 2026, a multi-generational house in Kelana Jaya that Tatler Asia featured, and construction work on a semi-detached house in the city; we have also designed a home at PJ Midtown. All four are in the portfolio.
How much does interior design cost in Petaling Jaya?
How do interior designers charge in Malaysia?
Do I need MBPJ approval to renovate my house in PJ?
Should I renovate or rebuild an older PJ house?
Can you fit out a new condominium in Kelana Jaya or Ara Damansara before I move in?
Which parts of Petaling Jaya do you serve?
Is there a difference between an interior designer and a renovation contractor in PJ?
Do you handle both the design and the construction?
How long does a full renovation in Petaling Jaya take?
Speak to Us About Your Petaling Jaya Home
Tell us about the house — the section or the building, its age, and what you want it to become. We will survey it, tell you plainly whether to renovate or rebuild, and show you the design in 3D before anything is ordered.