Making home design dreams come true, ............................ Balla Custom Services

Making home design dreams come true with Balla Custom Services

By John Chambless Contributing Writer

The outdated kitchen cabinets, the dark and dingy basement, the bathroom that was never quite right. Most homeowners have looked around and thought, “Someday, I’m going to fix that.” At Balla Custom Services, there’s a solution for every home renovation quandary.

For Brent Balla and his wife, Tara, the Coatesville-based company they run is positioned to help people who know what they want to do with their living spaces, but who need help turning dreams into reality.

“Back in 1984, my dad got into the construction side of things, doing handyman work and small remodels,” Brent

said. “He was doing that along with other stuff. He was really good at helping people, and he was really kind and patient. For 20-plus years, the business didn’t really grow. I started helping him when I was 13. We hired help a few times, but not a lot. The first year I got paid in lunches, and the second year I got paid $5 a day, and the third year I got paid $5 an hour,” he added, smiling.

Brent went to college, planning on a career in video production, but as his father started to scale back his workload and look toward retirement, “I picked up some landscaping jobs, doing projects here and there,” Brent said. “In 2002-2003, I jumped in and started doing a lot more. The business was working. In about 2005, I figured, ‘Let’s make this business into something bigger.’”

He married Tara in 2008 as the business was expanding under Brent’s leadership, and in 2015, started transitioning from handyman services toward both design and renovation. A full-time designer came on board in late 2019, positioning Balla Custom Services as a company that can take a customer’s ideas and make them work. “We do the full package,” Brent said. “We do renderings and plans and everything else.”

The bewildering range of products and prices can usually stop a homeowner in their tracks, but Tara said Balla offers a guide through the maze of goods and services. “We bring three choices to you so you have options, but it’s not this unending box of samples,” she said. “We present good, better and best. That still leaves a lot of choices within each

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category. We try to hone in on three options in each category. We can do custom requests, but the average customer just wants to be guided. We want to be that guide. We ask about what their dream style is, what examples they’ve posted on Pinterest. That helps people feel that, ‘Oh, I have options, but I’m not overwhelmed.’”

The past few years have turned the home renovation business inside-out, first with pandemic shutdowns, then supply chain interruptions that have driven up prices for just about everything. “Lumber jumped maybe 200 percent,” Brent said. That left home renovation companies scrambling, since they suddenly faced huge cost increases that conflicted with contracts already signed with customers. Some, including Balla, struggled.

But for two years, homeowners were at home, suddenly wanting to renovate. At the same time, the real estate market shot into the stratosphere, and “people realized that it’s expensive to renovate, but moving is even more expensive,” Tara said. “Kitchen and bath renovations just exploded. People figured, ‘If I’m not going to move and I’ll be spending the next 20 years in my home, I want it to be nice.’”

There’s no lack of customers for home renovation companies, and Brent said Balla is usually running three projects simultaneously, with two employees at

each job site. Today, Brent handles sales and oversees the company’s operations, while Tara takes care of the finances and insurance, as well as handling client relations.

Balla Custom Services rents a space on Lincoln Highway in Coatesville that holds offices, sample products, a designer’s workspace and workshop, but most consultations take place in the homes of clients.

A standard part of each job the company takes on is extensive preparation, and a series of consultations that lay out

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what a customer wants, the products that will make that happen, and a timeline. But there’s also a lot of education, Brent said. “We educate people about why we’re a better fit than a design build firm at the high end, or a handyman at the low end,” he said.

As an example, for a basic kitchen renovation, a solo handyman may charge between $5,000 and $30,000. A design build firm offers things like 3-D modeling and top of the line materials across the board, and they can charge $75,000 or more. Balla Custom Services aims for the middle, with kitchen remodels coming in at $20,000 to $60,000. “We never want a client that’s unhappy,” Brent said, “so I show them that we still have the most competitive price. We take our time to get the best outcome.”

INVESTED IN CHESTER COUNTY

Contributing to the communities we serve is integral to our business. Whether it be investing millions in our infrastructure; protecting our watersheds; or assisting customers with their water bill, we seek to improve the quality of life of those we touch.

With hundreds of projects successfully completed by the Balla team, there have been some makeovers with dazzling before-and-after photos, but “some jobs are not a ‘wow’ on social media,” Tara said, laughing. “Those can be rare.” But even if the change isn’t a spectacular reveal, a well-installed interior can be just as satisfying for the client. And home improvements increase the value of anyone’s home.

“Our target is a client who wants a company that can handle everything,” Brent said. “Our skillset is having a creative team that can take affordable options and make everything look great.”

For more information, visit www.bcscraftsmen.com, or call 484-786-9897.

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