Wales is an incredibly scenic country offering rolling hills, spectacular coastlines, and quaint country villages. Whether you’re setting up your new home in North Wales, near Snowdonia National Park, or the South Wales Valleys, there are many great ways to showcase the unique Welsh landscape through creative home design. To get you inspired, here are ten design tips to create the perfect Welsh home:
1. Incorporate Natural Materials
The Welsh landscape offers no shortage of indigenous natural materials to utilise in your home’s design. Incorporate locally sourced Welsh slate for striking floor and wall finishes. Its variegated colours and textures beautifully resemble the dramatic cliffs and quarries of North Wales.
Woodwork with native oak, ash and beech adds inviting warmth and connects interiors to the ancient woodlands and rolling hills outdoors. Handcraft rustic wood mantles, cabinetry and shelving using reclaimed timber, or have local artisans carve more refined decorative wood accents. The natural grains and knots reflect the lush, untamed forests dotting the valleys and parks of Wales.
2. Display Bogbean Accents
Celebrate the serene wetlands of Wales by displaying dried bogbean throughout your home. Collected from marshy Welsh peat bogs like Cors Fochno, spiky bogbean branches make striking winter arrangements in stoneware vases.
Bogbean’s waxy oval leaves and little white flowers inspired charming folkloric names like “water candles”. Incorporate this lore with candle holders replicated from bogbean leaves or table runners and pillows digitally printed with bogbean leaf patterns and Welsh phrases about nature’s beauty. Keep things subtle with bogbean green and white colour schemes.
3. Add Pops of Red
Pay respect to the iconic Welsh red dragon with vibrant red accents. Paint interior doors or feature walls in rich Chinese red. Underfoot, layer red wool dhurrie rugs from Cambrian Wool over slate floors for a cosy contrast.
Upholster wingback chairs in lipstick red Welsh wool or wool-silk tweed, durably woven at Melin Tregwynt mill. Position them by glowing fireplaces topped with hand-carved dragon mantles. For kitchens, install glossy red cabinetry with dragon and Celtic knot backplates on handles. Red adds drama, richness and symbolic patriotism.
4. Make Room for Arts and Crafts
Wales’ vibrant arts and crafts legacy deserves a designated space. Curate a handcraft showcase nook, corner or room to exhibit wooden love spoons, original slate sculptures from Bethesda workshops, and ceramic pieces from the Cambrian Pottery factory.
Display them atop custom wood shelving built from reclaimed pit prop beams. Put arts and crafts in context with artwork like impressionist landscapes of North Wales quarries. The space will strengthen connections to the country’s maker history and landscapes through sight and touch.
5. Include Welsh Woo
llens
Incorporate Welsh wool textiles for tactile comfort and cottage core vibes. Source colourful Welsh tapestries like the Celtic knot motifs woven at Melin Tregwynt mill. Use them for pillows or wall accents.
Layer Welsh wool dhurries and sheepskins underfoot for cosy softness during those long, dark winter months. Seek handmade wool throws from the Snowdonia Woollen Mill to cuddle under by crackling fireplaces. Their classic black and red plaid patterns keep the textile traditions embedded in Welsh rural communities alive.
6. Open Up the Views
The postcard-worthy scenery in Wales deserves unrestricted sightlines from interior living spaces. By incorporating floor-to-ceiling windows, glass garage doors, or entire glass walls, you can completely open up floor plans to the spectacular exterior views just outside.
Site seating areas like slate-tiled breakfast nooks or modular sofas directly in front of these new transparent boundaries. Gaze out freely towards rolling emerald pastures, craggy sea cliffs, and quaint country villages dotting the horizons ahead. If needed, integrate remote-controlled solar shades into the windows for adjustable light control.
7. Create Statement Fireplaces
As the traditional communal heart of Welsh homes, fireplaces deserve bold statement treatment. Craft oversized hearths from locally quarried Welsh slate, laid in an irregular flagstone pattern for organic texture.
Ornate hand-carved oak mantles overhead can feature Celtic knots, love spoons, or dragon motifs. For more contemporary open-concept spaces, make a visual impact with suspended two-sided fireplaces clad in fire-resistant Welsh slate or concrete. Their transparent views will radiate warmth across multiple interior zones.
8. Illuminate with Handblown Glass
Install lighting from the celebrated hand-blown glass artists of Wales to infuse interiors with a magical ambiance. Coloured glass pendants, sconces and chandeliers showcase innovative shapes and fluid forms which cast dynamic shadows when lit.
Custom order swirling marbled glass lampshades to top existing floor and table light fixtures. When glowing, these handcrafted pieces illuminate rooms with an ethereal quality uniquely reflective of Wales’ glassmaking legacy.
9. Add Pops of Pop Art
Wales birthed its own contemporary pop art style in the 1960s, led by subversive artists like Gerald Laing and Ceri Richards. Inspired by British and American pop art pioneers, they incorporated popular commercial imagery with humour and social commentary.
Incorporate this legacy with limited-edited archival prints of Laing’s provocative “Brigitte Bardot” series or Richards’ abstracted still lifes. Contrast them with traditional elements like cosy love seats and slate floors for an irreverent pairing. Or choose mass-produced pop art patterned textiles to upholster wingback chairs, cover pillows and even surface walls for more affordable and playful whimsy. Unsure what is pop art? Prepare to be amazed.
10. Zone Rooms with Slate or Stone
Finally, divide open-concept rooms with organic slanted slate walls that mimic the iconic mountain peaks of Wales. Position seating areas and walkways on either side for distinct activity zones. Or frame entryways and staircases with locally quarried blocks of dolerite, limestone or granite. Feel the rough-hewn texture under bare feet and see fossilised flecks glint from embedded minerals. Their natural variegation in shape, thickness and hue adds authentic Welsh detail better than manufactured ceramic or porcelain tile ever could.
Whether you choose to embrace all of the ideas shared here or just incorporate one or two of your favourites, these Welsh-inspired home accents will allow you to celebrate Welsh culture and surroundings through creative interior design. Show off all that makes your area of Wales so special by designating your new house as an authentic Welsh home.