Renovation
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Two experts. One home. No compromises.
Two experts. One home. No compromises.
Elmbridge Design & Renovations was formed when two specialists, each at the top of their own discipline, chose to stop working in parallel and begin working as one. Bal brings seven years of luxury interior design experience, five of them spent on high-end residential projects in Florida. Tim brings over a decade of renovation expertise built entirely in the Elmbridge area. The result is a studio unlike any other in Surrey: not a designer who subcontracts a builder, and not a builder who employs an in-house decorator, but a genuine partnership in which both voices carry equal weight and equal accountability, from the first sketch to the final reveal.
Bal Bahia
Design Director
Bal established her interior design practice in 2018. For five of those seven years she was based in Florida, working with high-net-worth private clients on luxury residential projects, from Gulf Coast estates to oceanfront villas, where she developed a fluency in large-scale, high-specification design that few British studios can match. She relocated to Surrey in 2026, bringing with her an international design perspective that she now applies to some of the most beautiful homes in Elmbridge. Bal's approach is editorial and considered. She draws on European modernism, English heritage and a deep respect for natural materials, stone, oak, linen, aged bronze, and an instinct for the spatial quality that makes a room feel generous even when it is quiet. She considers herself a custodian of each client's home, not merely a decorator of it.
Tim Brown
Renovation Director
Tim has spent over a decade building a renovation business that has become one of the most respected in the Elmbridge area. His background is in structural and architectural renovation, and he has led projects ranging from complete reconfiguration of listed and period properties to the delivery of high-specification extensions on the borough's most distinguished private estates. Tim's relationships with Surrey's finest craftsmen, stonemasons, specialist joiners and local planning officers have been built over years of consistent, exacting work. He runs every site personally, there is no project manager between the client and the founder.
"Luxury renovation has a well-known structural flaw: the designer sets a vision, hands it to a contractor, and then spends the build phase managing a slow erosion of intent. We formed Elmbridge to eliminate that flaw entirely."
Quiet, generous interiors, built with patience and the right materials.
Material honesty
We specify materials that improve with age: honed stone, hand-oiled oak, burnished metals, washed linen. Nothing that will need replacing in five years. Nothing that will date.
Architectural calm
Our rooms are spatially generous, carefully lit and reduced to essentials. We value warmth, texture and the comfort of beautiful objects, but restraint remains the most powerful tool a designer has.
Considered delivery
One studio. One showroom. One programme. One point of contact from the first visit to the six-month aftercare call. We do not hand off, subcontract our oversight or disappear after handover.
Discreet by nature
Many of our clients value their privacy as much as they value their homes. We work with complete discretion and never share project details, images or client information without explicit written permission.
Why we formed the partnership.
Luxury renovation has a well-known structural flaw: the designer sets a vision, hands it to a contractor, and then spends the build phase managing a slow erosion of intent. Decisions made on site, material substitutions, structural realities, programme pressures, gradually unpick the design, and by the time the client moves in, the result is a reasonable approximation of what was agreed, not the thing itself.
We formed Elmbridge Design & Renovations to eliminate that flaw entirely. When the designer and the renovator share a name, a studio, a showroom, a fee structure and a reputation, the incentive to protect the design is absolute. Every on-site decision is made with Bal in the room or on the phone. The vision does not erode.
We are selective, because we can be.
We don't take on volume.
A handful of private clients each year, never the conveyor belt.
We don't hand off the design.
Bal stays involved through site, snagging and styling. The vision is protected at every stage.
We don't subcontract project management.
Tim runs every site personally. There is no project manager between you and the founders.
We don't quote against a brief we haven't shaped.
We'd rather decline than produce a number on incomplete information. A proper estimate follows the consultation.
We don't chase trends.
We design rooms to feel right in fifteen years, not photograph well in fifteen days.
We don't work transactionally.
Every engagement begins with a quiet conversation. If we aren't the right studio for you, we'll say so.
Begin your project.
We invite you to a private consultation at our Surrey studio or your property.
Book a consultation