Post-Renovation Design • The Main Line, PA

The Renovation Is Done. The Room Isn't.

Your contractor built a beautiful Main Line kitchen or addition and left. Now the rooms around it feel half-finished, and the new work doesn't quite connect to the old house. Julia designs the last twenty percent, for a fixed fee, with a written plan in 48 hours.

Post-renovation interior design on the Main Line PA
26 years designing
Ardmore to Radnor
The last 20% specialist
Clarity or you don't pay
After the renovation

You spent a fortune. Something still feels off.

The stunning new kitchen, the awkward everything-else. The renovation nailed the kitchen. Now the family room beside it looks tired and mismatched, and the beautiful new space makes the old ones look worse.

The addition that reads "tacked on." The new wing is well built and somehow doesn't feel like part of the house. Proportion, materials, and light never got connected to the original rooms.

Empty, echoing, and you've stalled. The dust settled months ago and the rooms are still bare. You are exhausted from decisions and cannot face furnishing on your own.

Why this happens

Your contractor built it. Nobody designed it.

Construction and design are two different jobs. A contractor builds what is drawn: walls, cabinets, floors. Furniture scale, lighting layers, color, and how the new space flows into the rest of the house are design decisions, and no contractor makes them for you.

On the Main Line, the gap is sharper. A renovated space in a hundred-year-old stone colonial has to reconcile new and old: matching proportion, warming modern finishes, and connecting a fresh kitchen to rooms that have not changed since the 1920s.

That reconciliation is the last twenty percent. It is the difference between a house that had work done and a house that feels whole. Julia's studio is in Huntingdon Valley, PA, a short drive to the Main Line.

Finished Main Line room after renovation
Where the finish starts

The Fresh Eyes Visit.

$350 to $500
Fresh Eyes Visit
Julia walks your renovated Main Line space for 90 minutes, sees where the design stopped short, and delivers a written plan in 48 hours to finish it: furniture, lighting, color, and how the new work connects to the rest of the house.
  • 90-minute in-home walkthrough
  • What the reno left undone
  • Written plan in 48 hours
  • Vetted vendor list, no markups
  • Old-to-new connection plan
  • Credited toward Last 20% Package
If you don't walk away with clarity, you don't pay.
What Main Line post-renovation work takes on

Finishing what the renovation started.

The kitchen-to-family-room gap
The most common Main Line call. A beautiful new kitchen beside a tired family room. Julia brings the two into one considered space.
New addition, old house
Matching proportion, materials, and trim so a new wing reads as original architecture, not a bolt-on.
Modern finishes, warm result
Fresh white kitchens and open plans can feel cold in an old home. Texture and warm light keep the character.
Furniture scaled to new space
A wall came down and the old furniture floats. Right-sizing pieces for the new footprint is half the fix.
Lighting the contractor skipped
Recessed cans are a start, not a lighting plan. Layers make a renovated room feel finished at night.
The rooms the reno didn't touch
One updated room can make the rest look dated. Julia pulls the whole floor back into agreement.
A recent Main Line project

The Villanova addition that never felt like home.

Beautifully built, completely disconnected
A family in Villanova added a large family room off the back of their stone colonial. The construction was excellent, and the room felt like a different house: bright, tall, and empty, with no relationship to the older rooms it opened onto. They had spent heavily and still avoided the room.

Julia's plan tied it back to the original house: warm wood tones to echo the older trim, furniture scaled to the ceiling height, a rug to ground the seating, and layered lighting for the evenings. Design fee around $4,000 to $6,000, furnishings $14,000 to $24,000 for pieces that fit the scale. The addition finally reads as part of the home, and it is now the room they actually live in.
2026 Main Line post-renovation pricing

What finishing a room actually costs.

ServiceCost rangeDuration
Fresh Eyes Visit (walkthrough + written plan)$350 to $50090 min + 48 hr plan
Hourly design (Main Line average)$175 to $300 / hourVaries by scope
Single room finish (design + sourcing + placement)$3,000 to $18,0004 to 12 weeks
Whole-floor post-reno (multiple connected rooms)$15,000 and up8 to 16 weeks

Post-renovation work is mostly design and sourcing, since the construction is already done. Main Line homes run at the top of the regional range. Fresh Eyes Visit fee is credited toward any Last 20% Package.

The process

From half-done to whole.

1
Book
Pick a time. Julia comes to your renovated Main Line home.
2
Walkthrough
Ninety minutes to see where the design stopped short.
3
Plan
Written finishing plan in 48 hours, vendor list included.
4
Finish it
Run the plan yourself, or hand it back to Julia.

Renovation done and the room still isn't? Let's finish it.

Book My Fresh Eyes Visit
Common questions

Post-renovation design, answered.

Yes. Finishing rooms after a renovation is one of Julia's most common Main Line calls. The contractor delivers a beautiful kitchen or addition, and the rooms around it feel half-done. Julia closes that gap.

Because construction and design are different jobs. A contractor builds what is drawn. Furniture scale, lighting layers, color, and how the new space connects to the rest of the house are design decisions no contractor makes.

It starts with a fixed-price Fresh Eyes Visit at $350 to $500 and a written plan in 48 hours. Full room design runs $3,000 to $18,000 including sourcing and placement. See the local cost guide.

Yes. Connecting a new addition or renovated space to a historic Main Line home is exactly what Julia solves: matching proportion, materials, and light so the new work reads as part of the original house.

Julia usually comes in after the construction is done, but she is glad to coordinate on finishes and lighting while a project is still underway. See interior decorator on the Main Line.

Main Line towns

Finishing rooms across the Main Line.

Ready when you are

Finish the Renovation You Already Paid For.

90 minutes in your renovated room. A written plan in 48 hours. One room, $350 to $500. The last twenty percent that makes it whole. Clarity, or you don't pay.

Book My Fresh Eyes Visit (267) 789-1428
JG Interior Design LLC • Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006 • Serving the Main Line, PA