Renovating an apartment or condo in Sarawak

A high-rise kitchen is usually one narrow galley or a short L, with the sink, hob and fridge fighting for the same metre or two of run. The Sarawak instinct is a wet kitchen for heavy wok cooking and a dry kitchen for prep — but a condo rarely has the floor area or the extra drainage points to build two separate rooms, so wash-up, splashes and steam all land in one tight space that still has to store a full household's cookware.

Stop spreading out and go up: take the cabinetry to the ceiling with tall pull-out larders and a top-box so a small footprint carries real storage. Treat the split as zones inside one room, not two rooms — keep the sink base and any splashed run on a moisture-tough non-wood carcass (ACP, sold as AquaGlass, or full aluminium) and reserve wood-based board for the genuinely dry prep and pantry runs, because moisture-resistant is never waterproof. Directly behind the hob the flame zone must be non-combustible — solid metal, glass, tile or stone — since standard ACP is combustible and belongs on the splash walls, not over the burners. Moving the wash-up or drainage to carve out a true wet/dry split is plumbing work, so settle that with your coordinator before the cabinetry is drawn.

Most units give you one narrow rear yard, open or half-open to the weather, where the washing machine, the drying, the water heater and often the outdoor tap all share the same corner. It is the wettest, least ventilated part of the home — rain blows in, the floor stays damp, and anything wood-based stored out there swells and grows mould within a season or two.

Build this zone for water from the start. Any cabinetry in the yard — a laundry base, a tall broom-and-detergent cupboard, a fold-away drying store — should be a moisture-tough non-wood carcass (ACP AquaGlass, honeycomb or full aluminium), not board, and the walls read better in WPC fluted panels or tile than plaster. Keep everything up off the floor on a plinth or wall-hung so a wet floor never wicks up into it, and remember that moisture-resistant resists water, it does not defeat it — the yard still needs to drain and breathe. The floor waterproofing, the drainage falls and any dryer exhaust or extra ventilation are cross-trade jobs to coordinate, not cabinetry.

A condo has no store room, no roof space, no garage and no garden shed. Suitcases, festive decorations, the spare rice cooker, seasonal bedding and the kids' outgrown things all have to live inside the same square metres you sleep and cook in. Buy loose freestanding units to cope and you lose walkway — the place feels smaller, not larger.

Make the architecture do the storing. Run wardrobes and cabinetry full-height to the ceiling rather than stopping at door height and leaving a dust gap, and give the top boxes to the things you reach for twice a year. Earn double duty from every built piece — a bench seat that opens for storage, a TV-living wall with concealed cabinets, a bed with drawers under it, a slim tall unit in the dead space beside the fridge or the entry. Height and multi-function are how a small unit stores a full household without eating the floor; how much you keep and any loose furniture are your call, but the built joinery is what recovers the space.

Everything you renovate with arrives by one service lift and through one unit door, often many floors up with no alternative. A full-length worktop, a 2.4-metre wardrobe side or a large glass panel that can't fit the lift car or turn the corner into your unit simply cannot be delivered in one piece — and discovering that on delivery day is a failed install, not a small delay.

Design for the lift before you design for the look. Measure the service lift car, the unit door and the corridor turns, then specify cabinetry as modular, knock-down units that come up flat and assemble inside the unit rather than as large pre-built boxes. Break long runs and worktops into jointed sections sized to fit, and choose panel and glass sizes that can be carried and manoeuvred in. This is exactly where ALUMAX's modular carcasses earn their place in a high-rise — the same finished run, delivered in pieces that actually reach your floor.

A landed house you renovate on your own clock; a strata unit you do not. The JMB or management office controls permitted working hours and days, requires a renovation permit and drawings, holds a refundable deposit against damage, dictates which lift and route debris leaves by, and can stop your job on the spot for a breach. Ignore this and you lose the deposit, annoy every neighbour on your floor, and can be shut down mid-works.

Clear the by-laws first, because in a condo they set the sequence for everything else. Get the renovation permit, pay the deposit, and read the rules on hours, noisy works, protection of common areas and debris disposal before you lock any schedule. Front-load the noisy, dusty work — hacking, drilling, floor removal — into the permitted windows, and keep quieter fit-out and assembly for the tighter days. This is your relationship to hold with your management, and the phasing is your call; ELS can then coordinate the trades to land inside the hours you're given, but nobody can get your permit for you.

In a high-rise your walls and floors are shared. Footsteps from above, a neighbour's TV through a party wall, and your own hard floors sending sound to the unit below are all part of stacked living — and bare tile, glass and plaster bounce noise around rather than absorb it. Drawers and doors that bang carry through the structure and read as noise to the people next door, not just to you.

Build the fit-out to run quietly and to soften what travels. Specify soft-close on every drawer and door as standard so nothing slams through a shared wall, and lay SPC flooring over a proper acoustic underlay so footfall isn't telegraphed to the unit below. Dense full-height cabinetry against a party wall doubles as a sound buffer. Genuine sound reduction through the party walls, floor and ceiling — resilient layers, ceiling treatment, acoustic build-up — is multi-trade work to coordinate, and it reduces noise rather than ever eliminating it; the cabinetry and flooring choices are the part that quietly does much of the job.

A separate dining room is a luxury a compact unit rarely has, and a full six-seat table in an open-plan living area eats the whole floor and blocks the walkway to the kitchen and yard. Yet a family still needs a daily place to eat, and room to seat guests during festive visits, without the space feeling permanently crowded.

Trade the standalone table for built-in seating that gives the space back when you're not eating. A banquette bench along a wall seats more people in less depth than chairs and hides storage under the seat; a bar or peninsula counter off the end of the kitchen doubles as prep, breakfast and casual dining; and a fold-down or extendable leaf lets an everyday two-seater open up for festive guests. The built bench, bar and counter are joinery ALUMAX makes to fit the exact wall; the loose stools, chairs and how you like to host are yours to choose.