House Voyeur: A Fresh Start in Baltimore

Some of you may know the woman behind today's House Voyeur tour, Meg Fairfax Fielding, via the blog Pigtown Design, which takes its name from the historic Baltimore, Maryland neighborhood where Meg resides.

Meg's approach to her home has been all about making a fresh start -- she recently returned to Baltimore after living abroad -- while also sticking to a tight budget and keeping her small house very personal. Meg has decorated almost entirely from scratch, but with items that have meaning to her, that invoke special memories, and that come from the people and places she loves most.

Here, Meg gives us a virtual tour of the home she shares with her yellow lab, Connor:

"I'm a Baltimore native, and my mother's family has been here for at least 12 generations. But a few years ago, I needed a big change in my life and decided to pitch everything and move to the UK, where my father was from. I ended up in Wales, working at an international boarding school housed in a 12th century castle.

Before I left Baltimore, I sold everything I owned -- my house, my car, and 95 percent of my possessions. I kept a few boxes of important books, my collection of copper cookware from France (not very helpful, since I don't actually cook much), and one completely impractical piece of furniture -- a large commercial kitchen counter.

While I was living in Wales, my father became ill and I needed to move back to the States. So then I sold everything I’d acquired in the UK and came home -- with no job, no house, no car, and very few possessions. I was living in my parents' empty house and because I wasn’t working, I had a very small budget. But I did have plenty of time to search craigslist and to scour flea markets and discount stores like Target for furnishings for the house where I’d eventually move. From sheets to towels and chairs to china, I knew I'd need everything. I also had to decide what I needed immediately and what I could wait to buy.

I've now been in my home, a 120-year-old Baltimore rowhouse, for a little less than two years. The house is in an area called Pigtown that was built for the workers at the old B&O railroad. It's a neighborhood in transition that's being gentrified by professionals from the nearby University of Maryland Law, Medical and Dental, and Social Work schools, and that's just blocks from the Orioles baseball and Ravens football stadiums. But there's still a gritty underside here. 
 


The house is only 11-and-a-half feet wide by 35 feet deep, and is less than 700 square feet in all. But it's the perfect size for me. When I look at bigger houses, I think that I wouldn’t know what to do with all that space. When I look at smaller ones -- the few that there are -- I think I have just enough room!

I love the light here -- especially in my bedroom (top). The house is south-facing, and in the winter the light brightens everything. In the summer, the tree out front filters the light and cools the house. It’s a flowering tree, so in the spring it’s a cloud of blossoms.

My main goals were to make the house warm and welcoming and to have it reflect who I am. This bookshelf is a good example of that: You can see some of my favorite books here, including I Married Adventure. The shelves also hold some of my late father's Baedeker Guides to London. And you can see both sides of my heritage in the Maryland crab and the American and British flags. That's my grandmother in the photograph on the top shelf.

The west-facing wall of my house runs about 35 feet from front to back. I printed black-and-white photos of special places I visited during my time abroad, bought matching double-matted frames from the dollar store, and hung them along the long wall. I just got a laser level and, miraculously, all the pictures are lined up perfectly!

I love this vignette because it combines some of my family's old silver, my mother's wedding photo, gifts from friends, and even my family's coat of arms.

I like poking around thrift stores, auctions, and junk shops to find things that other people overlook. I found two of these dining chairs at a huge antique/junque warehouse, for instance. Their bones were good -- sort of Chinese Chippendale -- but they were painted brown with hideous brown-and-green fabric seats. I sanded them, painted them gloss white, and re-covered the seats in this pink-and-white Waverly fabric.

This yellow Ethan Allan sofa that I found on craigslist is the piece that started the yellow theme in my home. It was too wide to fit into someone’s house, so it came right from their moving van to my house. Before buying the sofa, I'd never had any yellow at all.

Then my mother gave me a yellow Chinese silk painting that didn't fit her new house, and I found two yellow ottomans with white piping at Target. Finally, I painted a little footstool that had been in our library growing up yellow and re-covered it in a pale yellow and blue stripe.
 It all really pulled the room together.

And of course, my best find of all was a 'used' yellow Labrador retriever that I got from the City Animal Shelter for just $50!

After being in Paris every three weeks for a project I was working on, I decided to do a French-inspired loo. I found this poster at the dollar store, and the frame is from IKEA. You can't see it in the photo, but I also have a blue-and-white toile shower curtain.

This is the guest room. My brother-in-law gave me the duvet cover, made from my favorite toile. The fabric on the back of the bookshelf is by Manuel Canovas, which I found at the Load of Fun Flea Market for $1 a yard.

I turned part of the guest room into a home office. More dollar-a-yard Manuel Canovas fabric is stretched around a large frame, creating a piece of inexpensive but cheerful and colorful art. The barrister's bookcase, which I found for just $25, houses my collection of cashmere sweaters. Because the house is so old, there's very little closet space and I have to be creative when it comes to storage -- hence the boxes and bookcase.

One critical thing I've learned is to live in a house for a little while and let it speak to you. You'll figure out how you use the space, what the light is like, what the traffic patterns are, and other critical elements. And decorate for yourself and your family. After all, you’ve got to live with it. If you’re not comfortable using a room or a piece of furniture, then what’s the point? The people who love you don’t care if they’re propped on kitchen stools or lounging on a down-filled sofa. It’s you they care about."

Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful home with us, Meg!

(P.S. Want to see more? Click here for a peek inside other readers' homes.)