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.
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!
Sponge Interiors 