House Updates 1 - Charleston, Great Falls, and Willow Grove

It's the moment of truth. Quite a few of the houses I've featured over the years have come back on the market since I first daydreamed about how I would live in them. I thought it would be fun to compare what I suggested with how the new owners actually decorated.

If you have really good eyesight, you might recognize this first house from these two tiny pictures on my blog header:

It's from my 2014 post Old Bridgeview Lane. Old Bridgeview Lane is the (unlikely) name for this 3 bedroom home in a 54 unit condo building overlooking the Ashley River in Charleston, South Carolina.

In 2014, it was very on-trend to turn all of our happy yellows into a calmer shade of gray, so that's what I did. The people that bought the condo had a similar idea, but they spread some happy colors around as well.

This is how it looked when it was back on the market in 2017. It sold again in 2018.

This next house features more of a prediction than a suggestion. Last fall, designer Lauren Liess bought this 5 bedroom, 3.5 bathroom, 5,000 square feet home built in 1977 in Great Falls, Virginia house as an investment property.

I was intrigued by the living room's possibilities:

This is the direction I thought Lauren would go when she decorated it:

{William McClure}

It's a very natural, organic, yet collected approach that really reminded me of animal lover Lauren.

In real life, she wowed me with this instead:

The trim box molding and earthy color really make a statement and frame the window nicely. The neutral colors are definitely a better choice for resale, too.

This is how the exterior looks now, with fresh paint and some of the shutters removed:

Lauren updated it beautifully. It's no surprise that it was only on the market for a month this year and sold during the pandemic!

This last house is Woodlawn, a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom bungalow built in 1915 in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.  I posted about it in 2014, and it's currently back on the market. It used to look like this:

Now it looks like this, with the screened-in porch opened up, and painted a perky bluish-purple:

I suggested the following change for the living room:

Here's what it looks like today:

They removed the paneling, but added a baby! Here are the rest of my suggestions, matched with the current listing photos:

The homeowners did a nice job freshening up the spaces with paint and new carpet. I bet it won't be on the market for long.

Do you like these real life before and afters? I plan to post these updates once a month. They'll keep me and my suggestions on our design toes!