Step inside Wee City Nook, an uplifting and creative home featuring in episode three of Scotland’s Home of the Year 2025

Tune into BBC One Scotland on Monday 5th May to see architect Danny Campbell and interior designers Anna Campbell-Jones and Banjo Beal wander through some of the country’s most beautiful self-designed homes. In the third episode, the trio are heading east with hopes of finding properties that ooze character and creativity; places that reflect the owner’s personality and show an understanding of what it takes to make a house a home. We have a soft spot for Wee City Nook, but more on that later.

In episode three, the judges will visit three unique properties: an extended bungalow in Anstruther, a tenement in the Stockbridge area, known as Wee City Nook, and a Georgian basement apartment in Edinburgh’s New Town.

We speak to on-trade sales manager at Minor Figures Devin and her joiner-carpenter husband Max about their colourful and uplifting first-floor traditional tenement flat in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. Fondly referred to as Wee City Nook, the airy and bright home is filled with quirky art, sculptures, trinkets and statement furnishings. Though busy with pattern, every element is considered; each a marker of joy and memories made.

Continue reading to see our chat with Devin and learn more about her first-floor traditional tenement in the heart of Stockbridge, Edinburgh. You don’t find many spots with as much character as Wee City Nook.

How does it feel to be on series seven of Scotland’s Home of the Year?

Surreal. We entered on a bit of a whim, so it feels wild to see our home on the TV!

Are there any elements of Wee City Nook you hope the judges notice or feel when they visit your home?

I hope they see that we have thought about every inch of the place and tried to make use of every little nook and cranny.

There are a few simple or more subtle elements that we hope they might clock. We have a chopping board built into the tiniest wee gap on the counter in the kitchen. We like to maximise the functionality of our spaces – especially in a practical room like a kitchen – because the flat is so small. We also have a little wine rack on the other side of the kitchen that fills a space that would otherwise have been an empty void.

It’s such a small space that we look at every surface and think, “Right, what can we do here – and what can we do there”, even though it’s maybe not a space that you would normally fill in a more sizeable home.

Max is a carpenter and a joiner, so he knows exactly what to do to make sure elements like these fit into the spaces naturally.

He has the skills, I have the Pinterest boards… and the style! Together, we’re able to be really clever with how we utilise our home.

Your Wee City Nook is filled with pattern and colour, but one of the key elements we can see throughout the home is art. You have prints and sculptures in every space – is this a matter of taste, or do these pieces have meaning attached?

Everything has meaning. I love finding really unique pieces, so a lot of them come from flea markets, or on trips to London; pieces that I see and love and take home. There are a lot of items that I have inherited or received as gifts from family and friends as well, which are always going to stay in our home.

So, we’ve worked around some of those inherited, meaningful pieces and picked other things up that would work around those main focal pieces. Every room has that selection of focal pieces and then curated elements that we’ve bought to match or enhance the feeling they bring to the space.

On that note – would you say that the decoration process was centred around what you have and what you love, as opposed to some wider aesthetic that you wanted to emulate?

Do you know what, it is a little bit of both. I always have boards on Pinterest and stuff saved on Instagram, just because I have an interest in design and interiors and creative projects anyway. But they help create a framework and help me understand what I could use, for example, to tie some more mis-matched things together in the space. Like a large rug or bold throw; even the selection of the bed linens or tiling in the bathroom. Every element matters and it is rooted in our tastes.

But it is ever-changing. We enjoy stepping back at the end of making a big change, like painting a whole room in blue, and going, “Does that really work?” and giving ourselves the grace to start again and just explore as part of the decorating process. Altering things until they feel right.

Do you decorate Wee City Nook for joy instead of trends?

So much is about how we feel. Things like the herringbone flooring or terrazzo tiling in the bathroom came from noticing what was popular and what was considered maybe on-trend at the time. But it’s only ever a few key things and then we wrap our own personalities, belongings and joy around those things.

Do you think the small amount of space you have is what forced you to be creative? Or would you approach decorating a bigger place in the same way?

It will be interesting to see how we decorate our next place, wherever or whenever that might be… We would want it to be bigger than our current wee city nook, so wouldn’t have to be as strategic maybe about how we fill space. So I don’t know what our creativity might look like with more room!

Do you have a favourite spot in your home?

The kitchen-living area. My favourite place to be in our wee city nook is at the breakfast bar facing the window. I work from there every day and I love being able to see the whole room. Anybody that visits, whether that’s for breakfast, for a dinner party, for an overnight; we all congregate around that same breakfast bar. It’s such a versatile space and it sees so much joy. I feel that every time I take a seat.

The backsplash in the kitchen is a favourite for me too. It’s a design that I loved, but Max took a bit of convincing as he was the one who had to executeit! He ended up warming round to the idea and loves it now. I’m so glad we did it because it brightens the room up in a really unique way and helps tie all of the varied decor together.

Describe your design style in three words?

Playful, colourful and purposeful.

Watch the third episode of Scotland’s Home of the Year 2025, featuring this design-led Aberdeenshire home, on Monday 5th May on BBC One Scotland, from 8.30 to 9.00pm.

If you loved Wee City Nook, explore Chris and Jessica’s design-led Aberdeenshire home below.

Scotland’s Home of the Year 2025: Chris and Jessica’s design-led Aberdeenshire home