Welcome to Fieldstone Hill! This blog is my dream in the making, and I am so glad that you are here to share in the love of making our homes more beautiful.

This project is just the tiniest of projects. Merely a shifting of furniture and belongings. However, it is amazing how refreshing clearing-out-the-old can be. Plus, this quick project has brought both practicality and usefulness. As well as getting rid of an overflowing eyesore. so, win-win.

Spurred on by my friend Traci who is hosting a January series, Organizing your Heart and Home, I was inspired to get nitty gritty, and clean out some closets for the new year, I chose to tackle my oldest son’s room.

Most of our closets, believe it or not, are in pretty good shape… due to a pre-Christmas organizing rampage that I went on.  So, instead of picking a full-blown closet, I decided to finally deal with the diaper changing table that has been collecting STUFF for, um, a few years. Despite the fact that he is, indeed, five…I never moved it because I have plans of overhauling this space into a school room after tackling the new boys’ room. So, it just sat there.  Looking silly in a big boy room.

But now, the changing table is going into retirement for the time being.

So, here are the Befores. How could it have come to this?:

Context. Let me give you some context.
Here is the rest of my son’s room. You just can’t see the changing-table-side-of-the-room very well from the photo. Just a bit in the bottom right of the second photo:

Now, the changing table has been placed in storage.
The floor has been cleaned.
All of the items-worth-keeping have been redistributed, mostly to the linen closet and to these baskets {which we custom fit to the built-in bookcase that Pop pop built.}:

And now, we have the very first hint that my first-born’s room is going to be evolving into our school room. How exciting!

Voila.  Here is the boys’ new Research Corner:

…I am so glad to have their growing school book collection in one place. In the baskets, I have piles of Animal Baby, My Big Backyard and National Geographic Kids magazines. On top, I displayed a very special toy: a tractor from Russia that was given to us by our Russian Exchange daughter and her family.

This corner still needs work, and is not quite display-ready… but it feels so good to be moving forward with a big project that is a part of our Home Improvement Goals for 2011. Thank you for spurring me on, Traci! I am also sharing this project at the Shabby Nest and Miss Mustard Seed.

I hope everyone has a great weekend, and gets one quick project done too. Why not?
– {darlene}

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Does anything say fresh, open, organized and peaceful more than this fabulous dining space? I really adore this dining room.
I need more fresh and peaceful in my day. How about you?
Let’s say we break down what makes this room so great:

{Martha Stewart}

ditto :: {what I would steal from this space}:

1. Let’s start with the hearty and rustic farm table. Painted black with some distressed exposed areas. The fantastic news about grounding your room with a show piece like this table, is that it is accessible to you as long as you are willing to paint. I would start scouring Craigslist for a table you love, then sand, give it a few coats of black opaque stain, and sand away to expose the edges underneath.
2. I love the drabware olive-gray walls. Set off by crisp white ceiling and moulding. Simply fantastic.
3. The window treatments hang long, crisp, well-ironed, and have a great drape. No polyester here folks; more likely a high quality cotton or linen. The color of the curtains are about two or three ticks lighter than the walls.
4. The curtains are hung well above the {thick and gorgeous} window frame molding, and drape all the way down to graze the floor. This gives the room height, and majesty appropriate for a dining room.
5. And don’t miss that they painted the window hardware in a drab gray that matches the curtains. fabulous detail. I am stealing that!
6. I want to steal the rug. Really I do. It is super classy with its subtle striping and herringbone feel. But, while we are on the subject, do any of you have a rug under the table that your family uses daily? Does it survive, or is it just gross-ness? Anyway… this wheat tone rug looks gorgeous with the black stained table. And what else makes it rock the room is the contrast it creates with the dark floors. Contrast is power in design.
7. The chandelier. I am in love. Did I mention that I love orange? But, beyond my obsession for orange, the olive-gray-putty color vs. the cheerful orange {possibly wood?} beads of the chandelier. This is a color combination that is both stunning and peaceful, with a twist.
8. An antique dresser for the buffet. Love this. Pieces like this always add untold amount of character. And don’t miss that the wood is orange. Excellent decorating choice.
9. The black frames on the prints. They work so well with the table. Both have strong lines and strong black-color presence. The repetition is also what makes it work so well.
10. Don’t underestimate the impact of the draping, fresh flowers that echo the “punch” color in the room {that would be orange, in this case}. They make this room amazing. It would be worth planting some in your own garden, so you can harvest readily.  If any of you are flower experts, I would love to know what these pretties are.

I just ordered the cutest decorative pillows for my boys’ room. You can see them here, on my design board for our future boys’ room. The whale pillows will serve as an adorable design element. And, can you believe it, they are coming all the way from Italy? for a song. $23 each.

You must go check out the Etsy Shop, Contemori. Here are just a few samplings of her Italian darlings for your favorite wee one. I know you will love her style as much as I do.

besides. every owl should have feet that cute.
– {darlene}

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“It is far more important to have three rooms that are beautifully done and beautifully run than to have ten or twenty that are dreary and neglected.” –Billy Baldwin

{house beautiful}

When we create our family’s home improvement goals, we usually select just one or two rooms that we plan on making more purposeful and more beautiful. This year, we are hoping for two: the boys’ room and the school room.

Now that the shell of our home has been restored and renovated, I find myself looking around at many rooms that are not exactly beautiful, and definitely not finished. Rather, they are filled with promise and potential. I am okay with not getting it all done – especially not overnight. After all, to be content is more important and lofty a goal than to have a beautiful home.

And that is exactly why I love this thought from the famous interior decorator, Billy Baldwin. And that is exactly why I plan on tackling the beautification of our home, one room at a time. For, no matter how frustrated I may be with our kitchen, I can always walk up the stairs and look at our peaceful, organized, beautiful, and {nearly} finished Master Bedroom, {What exactly is ‘finished’ anyway?}. And with even just one beautiful room, or just one beautiful view, we can have room to breathe. Room to think. Room to pray. Room to dream. Room to be. Room to focus on what is important, instead of focusing on the disarray that seems to shout loudly.

With each passing year, we will add more beautifully done and beautifully run spaces to our home. Slow and steady wins the race. One room at a time.
– {darlene}

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Love Fieldstone Hill? thanks. you rock. Share the love by Following {click Follow in the right sidebar}, Liking on Facebook, or linking here from your blog. I just knew you were awesome!