The Scottish House - Eclectic And Unique Interiors

There are houses that have interiors, and then there are Scottish houses, which appear to have opinions, weather systems, ancestral grudges, and at least one chair that knows more family secrets than it should.

The Scottish House: Eclectic and Unique Interiors is a tour through rooms that have absolutely no interest in becoming beige. Ianthe Ruthven’s book opens the door on that glorious Scottish domestic tradition in which elegance, eccentricity, practicality, inheritance, damp stone, good textiles, odd paintings, old wood, surprising colour and a complete refusal to obey showroom logic all sit down together and somehow behave. These are not interiors designed by someone who has just discovered “neutral tones” and is making it everyone else’s problem. These are rooms with accumulation, nerve and memory.

The great pleasure here is the sense that a house is not merely a container for furniture, but a slow argument between generations. A Georgian mirror may find itself above a battered chest. A modern lamp may be tolerated by a portrait of someone terrifying in a collar. Tartan may appear, but ideally with enough confidence not to look as if it is auditioning for a whisky advert. There are fabrics, books, fireplaces, painted walls, handsome chaos, awkward corners, and all the evidence one could wish for that taste is much more interesting when it has had to negotiate with history.

Scottish interiors have a particular talent for making grandeur look lived-in and comfort look slightly dramatic. A room may be formal enough to receive a bishop and yet still imply that a wet dog has recently made a serious contribution to the upholstery. The weather is never far away. You can almost feel the draught under the door, the rain ticking at the glass, the fire doing its best, and the furniture quietly deciding that it has survived worse.

Ruthven’s book celebrates houses that have not been flattened into lifestyle content. They are eclectic in the proper sense: layered, personal, occasionally obstinate, and full of combinations that would frighten a minimalist into a small white cupboard. This is not the tyranny of matching. It is the far superior tyranny of belonging. Things are allowed to have come from somewhere. They are allowed to be inherited, found, rescued, loved, slightly too large, faintly ridiculous, or impossible to move without three cousins and a van.

There is something deeply refreshing about a decorating book in which character has not been sanded off. These interiors understand that a home should not look as if it has been assembled in one afternoon by a committee with a colour chart. It should look as if life has happened there — meals, weather, visitors, repairs, fires, letters, arguments, dogs, Christmas, unsuitable lamps, and the occasional decision made in 1890 that everyone is still politely working around.

This Collins and Brown volume is in Very Good condition, which means it has kept itself rather better than many actual houses exposed to Scottish rain, central heating experiments, and generations of enthusiastic rearrangement. Crappy Old Books offers it for anyone who likes interiors with bones, rooms with stories, and the noble belief that a house should never look too pleased with itself.

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