21 / KitchenGreat Falls, Virginia
Residential and interior design · Great Falls, VA
Residential & Interior Designer in Great Falls, VA
Great Falls has kept a sense of open country that is unusual this close to Washington. Houses sit on generous wooded lots, roads follow the terrain, and the places people know best, from the falls themselves to Colvin Run Mill, are about the landscape as much as anything built. Talha Gursoy designs renovations and additions here that take their cues from the land and give each room a deliberate relationship to it.
Custom houses in a wooded setting
Great Falls developed largely as a community of individually built homes, and its housing is varied: traditional Colonials and farmhouse-inspired designs, contemporary houses with broad walls of glass, larger custom homes from recent decades, and a few older farmhouses. Many houses sit well back from the road on rolling sites, and their best rooms look out to the woods rather than toward the street. Renovations often aim to strengthen that orientation, bringing the kitchen and family spaces toward the view and extending them onto terraces, screened porches, and outdoor rooms. Ceiling heights and window placement in these houses often vary from room to room, and a renovation is a chance to give the sequence a calmer, more consistent rhythm.
What the site asks of the design
Many Great Falls homes are served by private wells and septic systems. Because a septic system’s permitted capacity is generally tied to the number of bedrooms, adding a bedroom or a guest suite can require a review of the system before the design is settled, and the drain field limits where an addition may sit. Slopes, drainage, and existing trees shape the footprint as well, and lots along Difficult Run and other streams may include Resource Protection Areas where construction is restricted.
Permits through Fairfax County
Great Falls is an unincorporated part of Fairfax County. Building permits are issued through Fairfax County Land Development Services, zoning follows the Fairfax County Zoning Ordinance, and well and septic matters are reviewed by the Fairfax County Health Department. Talha brings these reviews into the design study, to identify the requirements that may affect the plan. Drawings, budget, and schedule are developed together with Boss Design Center, so each decision is made with its cost in view.
Selected work in Great Falls
Begin an inquiry
If you have a Great Falls home and a sense of how it might live better on its land, Talha would welcome the conversation.
Projects typically begin at $150,000, and each begins with a paid design study credited toward construction.