Old Town Mood Board

Ahhhhhh! Now that this is real, I want to have somewhere to organize my thoughts around the design because I am VERY excited to get in there and decorate. I have a Pinterest board, actually multiple boards, but I’ve pinned thousands of images and it’s too much for me to make sense of right now. So I went through all of the photos I’ve liked on Instagram and I was amazed that there were some clear patterns. In terms of color, I’m gravitating toward a lot of marigold, blush, and rust/wood tones.

And after living on an island for a year, I really want to bring back the carefree, simple, beachy vibe of Puerto Rico with blue, white, and certain green tones. But within a “historical” / slightly formal backdrop in terms of molding and wall treatments.

In terms of color palette, I had three images saved that are shockingly similar to each other: marigold, dark gold, blush, peach, teal, sage, French blue. So I’m feeling very good about this direction! It feels fresh and joyful but also calm to me.

In terms of materials, I want to lean into rattan, exposed brick, natural wood, brass, and patterned upholstery and wallpaper. Since the house is completely move-in ready, my plan is to get all of our stuff in there first and then start to plot out the layout and design for each room. There are a few things we know we need regardless, like beds and mattresses for the master bedroom (we’re going from a queen to a king) and the kids bedroom (Leo was in a crib when we left and we’re considering. a bunkbed/loft situation since they’ll be sharing a room). And then we’ll want to do some painting, like the brick wall in the family room. But other than that I want to get in and live in the space a bit to see how things feel, which is definitely making me want to be there ASAP so we can work on things before the kids go back to school (although maybe it’ll be easier once they’re back lol).

Our New House in Old Town Alexandria, VA

We bought a house! I’m so excited, and relieved, and grateful, and excited! This has been so long in the making it feels surreal that we’ll have our own house in a neighborhood we LOVE. We lived in Old Town years ago before we had kids, and after four years in the suburbs, a year renting in Old Town, and a year “abroad” in Puerto Rico, we are finally coming back for good. We love the history, charm, restaurants, waterfront, and beautiful old homes; it’s our magic place and we can’t wait to get the keys and move in!

We’re flying back to the states at the end of May to spend a few months at my mom’s house in Philadelphia, and should be in the new house by the end of July. Ahhhhhh! I can’t wait. I’m planning to use this blog as a way to chronicle our journey moving back to Old Town and updating the house. We’ve been moving around a LOT in Puerto Rico and were renting before that so I’m soooo excited to make this house our own. Luckily it’s completely move-in ready and has even had a few recent renovations, but we’re excited to put our own touches on it and fill it with our things. In this post, I’ll do a little tour of what it looks like now.

Exterior

Entryway

Sitting Room

Office

Kids Bedroom

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Kids Playroom

Kitchen

Dining Room

Family Room

So, there we go! There are so many good things about this house! Next time I’ll share an overall mood board for where we’re headed design-wise. We’re not planning to do anything major as it’s so nice already, but we’re changing the function of a few of the rooms and doing easy things like painting, wallpaper, etc. Right now I have a million things saved on Pinterest as I’ve been daydreaming about totally different kinds of houses (lakehouse! ranch in the country! townhouse in Old Town!) so hopefully I can make sense of my MANY design inspirations. After I kind of land on an overall style, I’ll go room by room and try to get specific! Follow along why don’t you 🙂

An Interior Design Experiment

Hi, I’m Jess. I run a marketing ops agency by day, and I love it — but lately I’ve felt an itch to be more creative in other ways. We sold our house last summer and we’re now renting for a few months before we head “abroad” to Puerto Rico for a year. I’ve always enjoyed interior design, but now that we’re renting (and moving soon), it doesn’t seem prudent to be spending a ton of $$ on decor stuff. So I need an outlet to “design” without spending any money – ha! I had a blog for 7-8 years during college and grad school where I basically kept track of all the things I liked but couldn’t afford before Pinterest existed, so I feel like this may be a similar exercise. This will be my space to fantasize about houses I find online, and maybe showcase some of the projects I’m working on in real life (our house or friends’ houses) — until we get back from Puerto Rico and settle down in our own home again.

Designing Random Houses for Sale

One of the things I love to do is look for houses for sale online. I spend an embarrassing amount of time looking for townhouses in Old Town Alexandria, beach houses on the Eastern Shore, regal estates in the Philadelphia suburbs, and cheap fixer-uppers in Florida. It almost doesn’t matter where it is — I can get excited about a lot of different design styles and locations, and I immediately start thinking about how I’d update the kitchen and the bathrooms, what wallpaper I’d put up in the kids’ rooms, and how I’d finally nail a relaxing and intimate MBR (why does this always seem like the hardest room to decorate?).

So without further ado, here’s my first “project” — this single level rancher in Great Falls, VA. As with all houses in the DC area, it’s absurdly expensive for what it is — over a million dollars!! — but it has great bones and sits on 2.5 acres of land in a fantastic school district. And it has a pool! Cue fantasy of building our forever home and giving our kids an amazing life here.

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What I Love

  • Location, location, location – Great Falls is a great location that’s reasonably close to the city with great schools. You get a lot for your money here compared with other places like McLean, Arlington, and Falls Church.
  • Open layout – even though there’s a formal living room/dining room (in ideal world, we’d prefer an informal dining room and a great room instead), it’s still pretty open. It’s obvious where you should be hanging out watching TV while someone cooks dinner and it doesn’t feel like an overwhelming amount of space.
  • Land – I grew up in horse country Pennsylvania, so even though I love being able to walk to restaurants, it’s still a fantasy to own a plot of land that I can really make my own.
  • Changes are cosmetic – the furniture is too big, the decor is not my style, and the bathrooms are truly horrendous. But you wouldn’t need to knock down any walls to make this house shine.

Project List

  • Exterior – I’m a sucker for curb appeal, and while it’s obvious they tried, I just feel like the exterior could be so much better.
  • Bathrooms – I mean, just all of them are terrible. Not my style, and I’d immediately want to modernize.
  • Kitchen/Living Room flow – I’m perplexed about the lack of island and the strange layout for the cabinet bay, breakfast table, and console table up against the window. It doesn’t work for me.
  • Backyard – there’s a lot to work with here, but again I feel like there’s more potential. Definite landscaping and furniture upgrades, and an interesting challenge to make the pool kid-friendly without making it an eyesore.
  • All the decorating! Bedrooms, living room, dining room, basement, so much house to make work for our family.

So what do you think? What would you do with this space? I think next time I’ll start brainstorming the exterior and see where things go from there. Should be fun!