Working with Ingrid was a dream experience! My family and I live in a 100 yr old home in Oakland that had a bathroom that desperately needed upgrading. Ingrid has an artistic eye that clicked perfectly with our design wishes. She listened to our ideas and compiled 3D drawings to help us visualise what our bathroom would look like. Once we decided on a few key features and a design template, our project design came together very quickly. We chose tiles, a custom built vanity and marble top, flooring and bathroom hardware with Ingrid's input over a few weeks and then building work started with a general contractor, Adam Arrington Construction, suggested by Ingrid. We had Ingrid as an invaluable link whilst the works were carried out. All in all, the project was thorough and executed with great skill and a keen eye for detail. Our new bathroom has all of the hallmarks of what can be built by skilled craftspeople when great design is guiding a project. We are so grateful to have found Ingrid and to have her and Adam's expert work adorn our home. read more

Ingrid Ballmann Interior Design - Updated bathroom with custom vanity, Poulsen sconces and Heath tiles. Hardware is Newport Brass Tomlin in Matte White. - Interior Design Near Me - Alameda, California

Ingrid and Emilie were a delight to work with. Highly highly recommend their work and level of service, care and style. We needed to overhaul or family room and had no idea where to start or how to tackle some oddities in our old home. Ingrid provided ideas and expertise on both he decor but also some structural needs like removing an old window seat, and making sure all the door casings and trim matched and fit faithfully in our Victorian. She did an amazing job of marrying my style with my husband's and created a gorgeous room for us. We took a few calculated risks on paint colors and furniture we wouldn't have ordinarily chosen, and they turned out fabulous. Exactly why we chose a designer! read more

As a Contractor and Artist I have worked with many designers. I have done several projects with Ingrid, and would be more than happy to work with her again. Ingrid is insightful and intuitive in the execution of design concepts. Her ability to understand the client, bring together what the client wants, and communicate that to the rest of us makes her a valuable asset for any project. I highly recommend her and her company to anyone looking for a skilled professional able to articulate and bring to fruition designs and concepts any builder would be happy to build. It's obvious she loves what she does. Thanks Ingrid!! read more

I recently worked with Ingrid and Emilie on an important interior furniture project. I was impressed with their knowledge, thoroughness, and responsiveness. They kept me informed every step of the way. They help me solve a problem that had me stymied for a long time. I'm delighted with the results. I would happily consider working with this firm again. read more

I was in a rut. After almost 10 years in my office space, with a very fragmented and somewhat schizophrenic look and feel, I desperately need some help. Ingrid really listened to my needs and had incredibly thoughtful and creative ideas for my space. She knows how to keep an eye to her client's needs (in my case, the need to expand my business), how to prioritize them, stays within the budget and has fantastic taste. I'm so happy with her services and can't wait to show off my new PR Agency space to my clients! read more

We worked with Ingrid over the period of about six months to assist with the interior design and furnishing of a 100-year-old house we had purchased and are renovating in the Elmwood district of Berkeley. Our architect/general contractor recommended her and she worked well with him in coming up with sensible and elegant designs, often suggesting simple changes that really had a dramatic effect on the usability of our spaces. Ingrid helped with a design plan and esthetic, an overall color scheme and detailed color choices, furniture selection and sourcing (using a mix of custom, retail and vintage choices), and window treatments (from putting simple privacy films on windows to retail curtains to custom sheers). Ingrid has a PhD in Industrial Design from a top Paris university, and she has a very flexible esthetic. She works to understand and develop an individual style with you, which I appreciated given the many directions I felt pulled in from a design perspective. I think she does well at developing cost-effective design solutions that can be implemented all at once or in phases as your budget allows. We can't wait to save up enough money to start on our kitchen remodel to work with her. read more

Ingrid has advised us on our bathroom remodel project, specifically the tile design and layout. She also advised us many times on our renovation layout of our victorian house. She is an absolute pro, with an incredible eye for art and design. If you have the opportunity to work with her you will not be disappointed. She is best at high level large projects that she can sink her teeth into, and does an outstanding job with corporate environments. I've recommended her to many other friends and family. She is not the cheapest, but if you want the absolute best design work, hire Ingrid. read more

I'm finding it difficult to come up with just the right adjectives to describe Ingrid in a succinct way, so I'm going to have to settle for gushing. I had never worked with a designer before, but when we moved into this Victorian with our cobbled-together utilitarian furniture I really wanted to get it right the first time. Let me just make it clear, I do NOT have an eye for design. I know what I like when I see it all put together, but have no idea how to put things together that aren't all in the same showroom. Let's face it: single-style showrooms are boring. I didn't want boring. I also didn't want to work with someone I couldn't relate to at all, and I met with one designer before Ingrid who was clearly more concerned with her own image than helping me to find mine. Enter Ingrid, this beautiful French woman with style and grace and the warmest personality I had come across since moving to Alameda. I loved her from the first. We started with wall color and furniture for the downstairs rooms. Where my budget limited the style choices, we looked for vintage and lightly used items so we wouldn't have to settle. We met only as often as was needed to get a design down, so I never felt I was paying for unnecessary hours of her time. We even had a very enjoyable shopping day together in San Francisco because she hadn't used all the hours we had agreed to. I came away with a stylish but functional (I have three kids and a dog) set of rooms in beautiful colors that flow so well together. My favorite detail is a hand-painted wall design that everyone who comes over compliments us for. I was, and still am, THRILLED with the rooms. A few months later, we were ready to remodel our kitchen and there's no one else I would have even considered to design it. I had become fixated on this fridge that was made to look like a 50s piece but was new and energy efficient. She took that item and ran with it! What I got at the end of the remodel was a mixed-decade GEM that brought together everything I love about modern and 50s and Victorian design without being overdone or busy or confusing. Another hand-painted custom detail on the floor tied it all together. Nobody else has this kitchen! And it suits us so well- spacious, informal, light and airy and colorful, and I can actually use it heavily not just look at it- I have entire days when I barely leave this kitchen. The bar at the end facing the family room designed for my craft cocktail-obsessed husband is perfect. Ingrid was here throughout the remodel, making sure our plans were carried out properly. So many details I would have had no idea what to do with she handled easy as breathing. And again, I never felt I was being milked. She was always honest and upfront and a great communicator who stuck to what she said. I never thought I'd live in a house like this. It's a piece of art that you can touch, kids can run through with sticky fingers, dogs can shed on, and it still looks fabulous. Ingrid is absolutely brilliant. read more

Ingrid has such a wonderful eye.... she recreated the kitchen space in our tired old craftsman home in such a delicate way that you never lost the feel of the craftsman, but all of the modern amenities, textures and conveniences were there. We wanted an indoor/outdoor feel, and she delivered above and beyond our highest expectations. The spaces she redesigned came out so perfect and beautiful, meeting all of our needs. We unexpectedly moved recently, and got many, many compliments on the kitchen redesign... as well as benefiting from a significant increase in property value due to her flawless work. We cannot thank her enough! read more

ingrid is the best. not only was she a joy to work with throughout the project but we also completely love the results. i have no complaints. she is detail oriented, thoughtful, creative and passionate about her work. she was always thoughtful about the cost of items and her time while also paying attention to quality. she listened to our desires and adjusted her selections and design schemes accordingly but also helped us try new looks and layouts. she is extremely thorough and organized. i can go on and on. the project: after 30 years of living in their house my parents moved out and remodeled the entire house. ingrid helped us with the design from the beginning, working with the architect at first and then the contractor. she helped us select everything: paint colors, lights, hardware, furniture, kitchen and bathroom fixtures, everything! she worked well with everyone else involved in the project and was always available if there was a problem. ingrid was recommended to me by eco home improvement in berkeley as a green interior designer and she was very knowledgeable and helpful in this regard as well. she helped us find low voc/no voc paint and sealers as well as sustainable furniture and fabrics. she is very committed to making sustainable choices without compromising on design. lastly, one of the main reasons we originally decided to work with ingrid was her knowledge of artwork layout and design. she has worked with art installation in the past. She was great about laying out our collection and about taking inspiration from the art to design the rest of the house. read more

I've used Ingrid twice, and she's been great each time. The first time she helped me pick out paint colors to refresh our family room & bathroom, but she also brought a lot of great design ideas with her for window treatments, furniture and accent pieces to liven up the room. She also took into account the decorative pieces we already owned. Our rooms were transformed into warm, welcoming, coordinated rooms. The second time we used Ingrid was to choose paint colors for the other rooms of our house. We had extensive damage to our walls and ceilings requiring all the rooms, except the ones we'd done the year before, coincidentally, to be patched and repainted. She brought hundreds of paint samples and helped me select fantastic colors that coordinated with the existing furnishings in each room, and trim & ceiling colors as well. She also explained to me where to, and not to, change paint colors. We have a lot of rounded archways between rooms, which are not good places to change colors because there's no exact line. That means we had to choose one color that would coordinate with the furnishings in three different rooms! We also have one wall that extends through both the dining room and kitchen. Instead of creating a fake line where one room ends and the other starts (i.e., by changing paint colors), she helped me choose a paint color that coordinated with both rooms and the other paint color of the dining room. Overall, all the colors also look good near each other, seeing as they are in adjacent rooms. In the end, our house looks so beautiful! The atmosphere of each room has improved because of the colors chosen. The living room is warmer and more cozy. The dining room rug picks up both the khaki of 2 of the walls and the blue of the shared wall. The kitchen is calming now. My office is bright and sunny now. I could go on and on about how pleased we are with the paint colors Ingrid helped us choose. One friend mentioned that the colors look contemporary but also look classic to our 1920's Mediterranean style home. Ingrid's fantastic! Suzanne F. Alameda read more