Scottish Home Decor Style

Scottish decor is varied, but you'd probably prefer the country decor to the urban.

Scots were the first in Europe to engineer medieval skyscrapers, but they had medieval sewage problems all the same, and the industrial revolution added a layer of soot to the well constructed but poorly ventilated city dwellings. Since Scotland remained a poor working man's country until late in the 20th century, it wasn't until about the late 1940's, that homes were wired with electricity or piped with water and gas. Before that, they were lit with fuel lamps and warmed with coal burning fire places that coated the walls in a thin layer of black film. Wire mesh fire place screens were ubiquitous. You had to go out and pump your water, and then bring it inside and boil it to take a bath standing in a tin basin.

Redoing the wall paper was one strategy for improving the interior of one's soot coated home, so if you peel off a bit of the one on top, you'll find multiple layers of different wall papers underneath it.

Nowadays, urban Scots who can afford to, live in modern two story duplexes where most of the floor space is stacked vertically and a small yard is always green and lush. Home decor is fairly simple and uncluttered, with the emphasis on comfortable seating in proximity to the gas fueled fire place or heating element, windows that allow in what little natural light there is is the winter, and celebrate the very late northern sunsets in summer. At least one set of curtains is heavy enough to keep out the chill and save home heating costs. There is a practical no-nonsense quality to Scottish decor.

Older Scots have traveled a lot because their economy was bad enough to cause them to look for work abroad and to enlist in the military. They tend to bring home souvenirs of their favorite places visited, so you'll find odd bits of foreign arts and crafts in various places, although this is usually kept to smaller objects. Photos of Scottish engineering feats, like machines, bridges, and special buildings and monuments in Edinburgh, or of Edinburgh castle, are framed wall art. Antique maps of Scotland and Edinburgh are also used as decor.

Bathrooms tend to have deep tubs, and claw foot designs are common. Bath-rugs and large fluffy towels are important, as getting out of the tub into the Scottish chill is daunting.

Large whiskey cabinets are not as important in home decor as you might assume. Scots like to go to their local pub to drink with friends. Tourists with Scottish heritage love to decorate coffee tables using coasters with Scottish dialect on them, or pictures of Scottish landmarks and landscapes on them. They also love anything with the Loch Ness monster on it, although you rarely see that in a Scottish born person's home.

Scottish country decor often caters to a romantic vision of Scottish tribal heritage, as that is what draws tourists to bed and breakfast inns. To achieve this look, choose one clan's tartan and use it for wool curtains, and for wool blankets thrown over rocking chairs, sofas, and beds made of dark, heavy, solid wood with simple designs. You are cautioned not to mix tartans. Back in the old days, Scots were too poor to fuss over tartan consistency, and would happily use any piece of wool they could find or raid, but the romanticised literature of later days instilled such a pride in one's clan heritage that only one clan's patterns may inhabit a particular room or outfit. This is not to say that you couldn't use both the hunting tartan and the dress tartan (preferably in separate rooms), but they must be of the same clan. If you were to, say, mix a MacDonald tartan and a Campbell Tartan (traditional enemies) in the same home, you'd be asking for big trouble, and the Scottish decor police would descend on your home and force you to eat haggis with out getting drunk first.

Silver colored broach pins with Celtic knot-work designs and clan crest emblems make excellent adornments for tying back tartan curtains, and silver or pewter Celtic knot-work looks beautiful when featured on candle sticks, sconces, ornamental daggers, swords, and any other surface. The cool color of the silver contrasts well with the warm colors of the tartan wool. If you want to honor Scotland's Pagan and Animist traditions, a photo of one of the many circles of standing stones found throughout the country, and a relief of Green Man's face with foliage coming out of his mouth ( and many of the other Roslyn Chapel stone work reliefs), make good wall ornaments. Pay homage to Faeries, Elves, Pixies, and the all important House Brownie. You can do this by hanging a flattering picture of them on your wall or by placing a cookie or a biscuit and cheese or jam on a plate just beneath a garden ornament meant to resemble them. A cast iron cauldron hanging in the hearth is ideal, and should be complimented by herbal jars resting on shelves or the mantle piece. A broomstick made of an irregular shaped branch and handmade straw bristles leaning in the corner, is the perfect decor accent for this room that honors traditional healers and wise crones.

Real Scots who live in the country, but out side of the tourist trades, tend to be more nostalgic for their grandparents' generation, than for their clan's heritage, unless they are highlanders. The lowlanders and island dwellers were so inundated with vikings that their New Year's superstitions revolve around avoiding Viking raids, and their bone structure, especially up in the north east islands, is distinctly Norwegian, as are many of the words in their dialect. These Scots are just as sentimental about Scotland's landscape, music, and wild life however. Heather is a favorite ornamental bush for gardens and window boxes, as well as floral arrangements using both pink and white heather. Stag's antlers are used to make decor items, and seals are particularly honored, as they are the souls of deceased relatives. Much folk art takes the form of seals. Pictures of harbours and small fishing craft models are favorites in these regions. Shale flag stones, especially in entrance ways and around fire places are rustic lowland and island Scottish country decor, as are shale roofs! Few roofers know how to do those anymore.

Purple thistles are Scotland's national flower, however, they make better photographs, paintings, and motifs in silver or pewter designs than actual floral arrangements, due to their thorns.

Linen tea towels and porcelain tea sets are very important focal points in Scottish country decor. Tourists buy the ones with bagpipers on them, or pictures of Robbie Burns and the Edinburgh Castle, but real (elderly) Scots will more likely decorate with tea towels displaying Scotland's flowers or landscapes. Those with poems printed on them are sometimes hung on the wall. Tea cups are cheerfully colored, and the teapot is kept warm with a knitted or woven tea cozy, sometimes in the shape of an animal or bird.

Recent ancestors are honored with old photographs and medals of honor for serving in the military units with the lowest survival rates. Small farm utensils or craft making tools which are now antiques, are displayed as ornaments. Photos of family members in their graduation gowns are proudly displayed, as most people had to work in dangerous professions doing hard labor until recent improvements in the economy allowed more Scots to attend Scotland's very old and prestigious universities.

It was actually a Scottish academic facility in Edinburgh that gave the inspiration for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series, so if you are looking for upper-class Scottish castle decor, watch the Harry Potter movies for ideas you can incorporate into your home decor, like the jewel toned velvet or wool canopied and draped solid wood beds, the wall tapestries and framed portraits, the massive wooden and stone tables, high backed upholstered chairs, jewel toned carpets over stone and wood floors, and the giant chandeliers and hearths. This type of decor is ideal if you want to create the ambiance for seances, sorcery, and secrecy.