The beautiful tapestry and variety of homes in Surrey is a joyful sight. It represents a collection of period architecture that straddles centuries with traditional cottages, sprawling country estates and modern marvels that all collaborate for a pleasingly cohesive whole. Matching this striking landscape of exterior styles with an appropriately high-quality interior design involves a full understanding of how one wants their home to match their lifestyle. Once this is established, imagination and creativity can be paired with thematic elements, desired colourways and the minutiae of tiny fixtures and fittings that make a house into a home.
There is often so much more space to consider overall for homes in Surrey in comparison to properties in the capital. This does mean that the way the property interacts with the environment and its surroundings is a chief concern. It can lead any initial thoughts for remodelling, guide the flow of movement through rooms and order how natural light is applied to subtly enhance mood and wellness through days, months and seasons.
Finding the right creative interior design partner to realise your ambitions for a Surrey home is always a key step in this journey. Our guide to the very best among them will help with any initial research and introductions.
Lara Clarke Interiors
Lara Clarke started her residential architecture studio in 2016 to deliver an approachable and transparent methodology with stunning results for her clients. The team works primarily in Surrey, from a Farnham base, and is keen to convey that they steer clear of a signature style to let the property they are working on lead the thinking at every point. This agnostic approach for thematics and imposed design elements is a liberating way of creating unique personalities in remodels that perfectly matches their clients’ requirements and lifestyle.
The core elements offered from Lara Clarke are a full suite of interior design services from start to finish. From spatial planning and structural considerations through to bespoke joinery, cabinetry and integrated furniture and onto comprehensive project management, there is always one source of consultation and communication. Reassuringly, their past portfolio does demonstrate experience in refurbishment projects of an impressive scale while displaying a smooth process of high detail and enhanced collaboration. As a Surrey-based business, Lara Clarke has great access to local trades and attendant services too, with a wide knowledge of any development restrictions and building regulations that may impact the design. This kind of local knowledge is invaluable to any remodelling project, so your limits and guardrails can be in place from the very beginning.
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April Hamilton
April Hamilton is a luxury interior design studio operating out of Cobham to serve the beautiful Surrey area and its surroundings. With experience on listed buildings, large residential remodelling projects, townhouses and modern riverside apartments, their knowledge of the entire real estate portfolio in the neighbourhood is certainly extensive.
Led by founders Rosie Ridgway and Charlotte Small, they ensure that every project is managed with a personal and highly tailored approach that combines both of their impressive skillsets. Rosie immerses herself in the micro details of colour, textures, shape and form to understand how the space will function as much as how good it looks. Charlotte adds elements of the client’s personality into the mix and ties the whole methodology together with an emphasis on smooth processes and a joyful process throughout. As their recent showcase study of a family home in the Surrey Hills clearly shows, the results are always sophisticated, practical and with a thread of luxury pinned through everything they complete. This was a great example of how the familial requirement of day-to-day living can be attended to in spaces that have a defined style while working as a home should. As with all April Hamilton projects, there is never a compromise on aesthetics, even when amenities and functionality have to be prioritised.
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Pfeiffer Design
Pfeiffer Design founder and director Susie Pfeiffer began this wonderful studio almost thirty years ago to bring elegance to the interiors of homes across Surrey and the south east of the UK. Her early life was influenced by the creative establishments that she visited with family as a child; the stately homes, galleries and museums of the UK that manage to project an overall identity while maintaining the space for activities and purpose.
As a full-service practice from concept to post-installation maintenance, there is a lovely balance and coordination across the team that links with any required external companies and trades on projects. It is perhaps this clear synergy between ideation and application that makes the interiors that Pfeiffer creates so timeless and free from the constraints of trends and fads. Recognition for their work, particularly in the last decade, has seen some prestigious accolades garnered too. They were crowned winner of the BIID Interior Design Awards for the South East in 2022 and the winner of the Anna Whitehead prize for sustainable design in the same year. Their Sussex Heritage Trust Award win in 2023 also demonstrates a keen understanding of exactly what it takes to create a design both striking and sympathetic in equal measure. Pfeiffer Design provides the safe hands required alongside the creative minds to ensure consistent success for interior design.
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Fiona Wiseman Interiors
This is a residential interior design studio based in Cobham and Esher that works with the brief of creating liveable luxury for every project they complete. Fiona studied interior design in London and was a freelance consultant before creating her own studio in 2020 with a resolute focus on remaining boutique to keep a hands-on approach for every client. The portfolio of work that she has amassed in the last five years for large-scale new builds across Cobham and Oxshott is testament to this methodology, aligned with an unwavering commitment to using only the very best local artisans, builders and craftspeople. She describes the effect that this achieves as tailored, timeless and functional, with an emphasis on the qualitative results of how her interiors make people feel over what trends they are following.
So much of what Fiona creates stems from an investigation into the rhythm of her client’s lifestyle. Seeing how the spaces must operate for life, work, relaxation and entertainment shapes the environment that is then augmented by joyful design and visuals. Full project management from Fiona elevates the whole process from an arduous and time-consuming exercise to a much more collaborative and communicative one. This means that the details become opportunities for added thought and tailoring to make the remodelling imbued with as much of her client’s personality as possible. Guarding and nurturing that design philosophy is always at the forefront of a Fiona Wiseman project.
The practicalities of an interior design project should never deter one from taking it on. Watching an underused and unloved space become something that positively impacts your family’s lives is a genuine thrill that affords you the chance to stretch your creativity with the right partner beside you to navigate the whole process.
