Houzz Tour: Personal and Plaid

He was a 16-year-old living in a rural Mississippi ranch house, but when Scot Meacham Wood watched the PBS version of Brideshead Revisited and saw the shutters of Brideshead castle flung open to reveal a palatial interior, the forever-relocating Army brat arrived at his true baronial home.

“That scene had an emotional resonance with me that I’ve never recovered from,” says Wood, now an interior designer in San Francisco. As a professional, Wood works in the style his clients dictate, but when it comes to his own home — a 650-square-foot apartment near the city’s St. Francis Wood neighborhood — he feels free to indulge in the look that caused his heart to beat faster as a teenager. “I call the style baronial,” he says. “It’s Edwardian with Scottish and English country house influences.”

Wood has lived in the one-bedroom apartment for the past 21 years, and has used the interior as a design laboratory and as a canvas for his personal self-expression. He says the recent update of the space is the best — and possibly the last. “I’ve done everything I can with this space,” he says. “It’s as good as it’s going to get.”

Perhaps Evelyn Waugh’s aristocratic characters would agree.

Houzz at a Glance
Who lives here: Scot Meacham Wood
Location: San Francisco
Size: 650 square feet (60 square meters); 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom

It was almost as if fate brought the designer to the doorstep of the circa-1929 apartment building with Tudor and Mediterranean influences. “I used to drive into San Francisco, and I would routinely take a wrong turn that led me to this building,” he says. In 1993 when he was desperately searching for an apartment in the city, he responded to a classified ad and found himself there again. “It had two walk-in closets and original details. The exposed beams and doors were decorated with tole-painted embellishments — including crests.” In other words, it was perfect for him.

The elements that define the space and Wood’s aesthetic are visible in the living room: tartan plaid, dark colors, portraiture and the air of an English manor. “Because of my rootless upbringing — my father was in the military; we moved a lot, and I lived in eight houses by the time I reached the sixth grade — I have a fascination with all things ancestral,” he says.

His predilection led him first to a career in creative services at Ralph Lauren, where he helped realize the look of windows, shopping floors and events for several stores. (He says the ability to trick out the diminutive spaces in the windows was a great education in small-space decorating). It was at a Ralph Lauren warehouse sale that he scored the vintage oversize canvas seen here (it was once used as a theater backdrop) with an image based on the work of Britain’s George Stump. “I’ve heard that you shouldn’t use big pieces in small rooms, and I absolutely disagree,” he says. “A larger piece helps ground the space, and here it balances the 7-foot-long white sofa that sits opposite.”


Wood’s penchant for plaid is so well known, some call him the Man in Tartan. Perhaps his mother’s Scottish heritage explains the designer’s thing for the pattern — and those roots are responsible for his first name. “In truth there aren’t that many plaids in this room — just the chair, the pillows and the curtains. But a little plaid goes a long way,” says Wood. “In this space they cause the eye to move around the room.”

Wood’s trick for using multiple plaids together is to vary the size of the checks.

Also evident is his affinity for portraits. “I’m a collector, and portraits have always fascinated me. There’s a romantic humanity to them that is attractive,” he says. The works are hung above one above another in the traditional salon style, but although there are a lot of them, each one is important to the designer. “I have very little filler in my home,” Wood says. “Everything is something I truly love, and I’ve had many of these pieces for 20 years or more.”

Another small-space rule the designer is quick to dismiss is the one about dark colors making a room feel smaller. “I think that’s B.S.; it’s just not true,” he says. “During the day I’m at the office or working onsite. But at night when I come home, the dark walls seem to retract and disappear, giving the room a boundless feeling.”

Wall paint: Gentleman’s Gray, Benjamin Moore


On a door that leads to the hallway, one of the crests that first attracted Wood is visible. His love for the layered look is also apparent. At first glance, a reader might assume these images belong to a larger home. The designer’s philosophy is that a small space shouldn’t relegate the owner to a minimal decorating scheme. “I know it sounds counterintuitive, but when I moved in the rooms were empty and white,” he says. “They seemed much smaller than they do now with all of my things in place.”


Nowhere is the home’s vintage nature more apparent than in the kitchen. The room has about 2½ feet of built-in counter space and a tiny cupboard to take care of the needs of a man who loves to entertain and collect serveware. “It was not quite a scullery, but almost,” says Wood.

The designer stylishly added more counter space and storage by topping a simple aluminum Metro shelf with an antique cutting board. A radiator ("I hate the things; I turned it off on the first day there and never used it again,” says Wood) became a table with the addition of a skirt and a tray.

Small metal wall shelves give the designer space to display accessories.

Black paint: Dinner Jacket, Ralph Lauren


“The bathroom has its original white, black and pink tile, and I just made it work,” says the designer. The wall-hung sink got a skirt treatment with a fabric adorned with Asian motifs. “I think that you need things that are a bit more feminine for balance,” says Wood.

The custom shower curtain, like much of the pillows and bedding, bears his monogram. “Maybe it’s because I’m a Southerner, or maybe it’s because I was the youngest child and I needed to claim my stuff, but I love monograms,” says Wood. “It’s a great decorative detail.”


The hallway is lined with grass cloth and art, and has a dramatic red ceiling. “I call the weekend I painted it the lost weekend,” says Wood. “I purchased what I thought was the perfect color, put it up and hated it. I bought another paint, mixed it with the first — and still not right. This went on with roughly seven paints until I reached the perfect color and finished it with an emulsion to give it a little sheen. But until then that entire weekend was spent on a ladder.”


The reddish burgundy color on the walls of the bedroom, at the end of the hall, was an immediate success out of the can. “It’s the color of tea in a porcelain cup,” says Wood.

He used the shade up to the picture railing before transitioning to a plaid wallpaper for the ceiling. The rail is painted a dark brown and dressed with ribbon and nailhead trim.

Tartan shows up again on the gallery wall. Wood took scraps he collected over the years and framed them. Hung en masse, they create a large artwork.

He designed the full-size bed in the style of a wingback chair. It has warm-hued leather on the inside and (of course) a plaid pattern on the outside. That same material appears on the coverlet. “The headboard is very encircling and calming,” Wood says.

An acid-colored croc-print fabric covers a bench at the foot of the bed. “It’s the outlier in the room,” the designer says. “You don’t want everything to be too perfect. It gives the effect of a 1980s bridesmaid’s gown with dyed-to-match shoes.”

Wall paint: Churchill, Ralph Lauren


A tartan screen hides the radiator in the bedroom — clearly the sight of the old-fashioned fixture doesn’t warm this designer’s heart. The horn chair adds what he terms “an interesting and hilarious” touch.

Painting: Daniel Toussaint


Wood, pictured here, believes that everything he has added to his apartment has been money well spent. “I know that some people postpone their design lives until they own a house. I don’t think that way,” he says. “Maybe it is also the moving around I did as a child. The first thing we would do when we got to a new place was make it ours with all of the family things. I’ve never considered any other way, because I’ve always lived emotionally through decorating my personal space.”

Although Wood has lived in this unit longer than he’s resided anywhere else, he’s thinking about moving on soon.

“I don’t think I will be sad to leave it, although it has seen me through a lot in my adult life,” he says. “I think I’m ready to play in another sandbox.” Time will tell whether that sandbox is a bigger one.

See more of Wood’s interior designs

Browse more homes by style:
Small Homes | Colorful Homes | Eclectic Homes | Modern Homes | Contemporary Homes | Midcentury Homes | Ranch Homes | Traditional Homes | Barn Homes | Townhouses | Apartments | Lofts | Vacation Homes

URL: Houzz Tour: Personal and Plaid http://www.decor-ideas.org/cases-view-id-24277.html