Malaysian couple redesigns their flood-hit home into a beautiful white sanctuary

The interior of Rumah Teemor has an all-white design with pops of blue. Photos: The Star/Samuel Ong

Customised designs and unparalleled attention to detail have always been integral to Reka Teemor’s wedding creations, so it comes as no surprise that one of the most established wedding planners in the country has embedded these elements in their own home.

Faiz Sabari and Rozana Mumtaz, the husband-and-wife duo behind Reka Teemor, moved into their current home, fondly known as Rumah Teemor, about nine years ago.

Designed by Faiz himself, the home has a built-in area of 10,000sq ft (929sq m).

Their home blends simple modern decor with traditional heritage.

“We travel a lot and are often inspired by the many places that we have visited. The house has been designed to be flexible so that when we want to introduce more modern furniture, it can blend well with our more traditional elements.

“For example we have this lovely traditional gerobok, an old cupboard that we found in Yogyakarta. Since I have Javanese roots, we wanted something that was related to my heritage.

Rumah Teemor features the Limas Johor architectural style and contains original wooden materials from Faiz’s family home in Batu Pahat.

"After refurbishing the cupboard, it now houses our collection of copper containers that includes old tepak sirih and jewellery boxes. This certainly goes well with the fact that we are wedding planners!” shares Faiz.

Modern meets tradition

Situated on a 1.5 acre (0.6ha) family land that also houses Faiz’s mum’s and siblings’ home, the couple’s house is very special as it features original wooden materials from Faiz’s family home in Batu Pahat, Johor.

“When the family home was transported back here, we realised that it was going to be hard to maintain a wooden house for daily living.

“So, after studying the house, we decided to retain the basic style of the house, which is Limas Johor, and had the main wooden doors and windows installed upstairs, especially in the library,” says Faiz.

Meanwhile the wooden pillars have been turned into pergolas outside the home.

“This is how we have taken what is important to us as a family, our heritage and incorporated it into our home. It’s important for us as Malaysians to have our culture as part of our daily lives and not have it preserved in museums.

For Faiz (right) and Rozana, their home is a calming sanctuary.

“Culture is meant to be lived, that is what makes us different from other countries,” shares Faiz.

The couple took almost four years to build their home, and Faiz and Rozana’s magic touch is obvious throughout with each area being functional and the introduction of a coherent and continuous thread of colour from the ground floor up.

“We didn’t want a super big house, we wanted a home that would be used in every way. With this house, Faiz built a lot of entryways which allow for easy access during big family gatherings like a kenduri or majlis tahlil,” shares Rozana.

Faiz adds, “We were really inspired by small boutique hotels especially on how they manage what limited space they had with access for their caterers to enter so as not to disturb their guests. For example, you’ll find at the back of our house a covered area for the wet kitchen which people would not notice from the front.”

A fan of all-white interiors, the couple had the whole home in this shade, including the kitchen.

Though often perceived as a difficult colour to maintain, Rozana shares that it allowed them to make the home stand out with rich textures, surprising accents, and refurbished materials.

The couple’s favourite room in the house is the kitchen, where they usually gather as a family.

Their favourite room? The kitchen.

“It’s where we can gather as a family. Sitting here we can look out at the small pool area or the breakfast space outdoors. For family get-togethers, the spacious island is perfect for a buffet spread or if we want to watch a movie, we can simply head to the adjoining TV room,” says Rozana.

“After a long holiday or work, this home gives me calmness. I feel that it is where I can be myself and am able to think clearly. This home is a sanctuary for me and lets me think and plan creatively for our new projects,” shares Faiz.

An unexpected disaster

Then, the December 2021 floods happened. Like many homes in their area in Shah Alam, Rumah Teemor was not spared from the devastation.

Rumah Teemor blends simple modern decor with traditional heritage elements.

“That was such a terrible time for us. We were not home at the time of the floods, only our daughter and maid,” Rozana reminisces. “We were in town planning a wedding when calls started coming in that the water had risen.”

Other family members soon gathered at their home and headed upstairs to the second floor for safety as the floods rose higher. With the power supply cut off and access blocked, Faiz and Rozana could only return to their home two days later.

“It was so shocking to see the damage the floods had caused. Everything was floating, even the fridge and furniture. We were just glad that our whole family was safe,” shares Rozana.

With weddings still needed to go on as planned, the couple, in true professional form, got straight to work to clean their home.

“There was no time for us to wallow in misery. We had weddings booked up for every weekend and needed our home to be fixed up as soon as possible,” shares Rozana.

The refurbishment took a few months to complete, but a celebratory spirit now infuses every room in the house.

Furniture that could be salvaged was reupholstered or given a new lick of paint. One of the major changes that they did during the refurbishment was to change their timber flooring to customised tiles.

“We’ve kept to the overall white theme,” Rozana says, “but we’ve added pops of soft shades of blue that result in a clean, calming space, which is what makes it so beautiful. It’s our way of having a fresh start and to never give up hope.”