Part II - Creating Harmonious Homes - Color and You

Colors affect your mood and influence your health and happiness - link to extensive article about how different colors affect mood

This is the second posting in a series I am calling - Creating Harmonious Homes. The first posting dealt with managing clutter. This one is all about selecting primary colors in a home - colors that sustain you - emotionally, physically and psychologically! 

Studies have shown that color can change body temperature and appetite. It can affect your mood or level of energy. Begin to become aware of how different colors impact you before determining what hue to paint your walls. link to article

Color is a universal language, it stimulates the emotions, shapes, cultures and forms the background of our world. Everybody's life is enriched by color, which both energizes and lifts the spirit. Color can be a tremendous enhancement when you love it, or cause a real depletion in energy if you don't.

The rights colors are silent music; the wrong colors irritate and disturb. Louis Cheskin link

There are many articles about color and how it affects your personality. There are tests you can take to determine how color affects you.  It is important to choose colors that make you happy, content, and at peace with the world. For me, that is quite an array - I like reds in some areas and blues and greens in others. I have tried to like primarily neutral colors but find that I just automatically start adding color to spark interest and variety.

Blue is said to bring down blood pressure and slow respiration and heart rate.

What mood do you want to create? Which colors will help you achieve that mood?

Find clear answers to these questions. If you find this task difficult try to look at magazines, decorating books, blogs and websites for ideas, or let your fabric be your guide. In fact, this is a good approach to take even if you’re starting from scratch. Fabric, carpeting, furniture and tile are available in a more limited range of colors than paint, so choose them first and then decide on your paint color. Once you find something you like, limit the number of colors in a room to no more than three or four. Too many colors can make a room look busy or cluttered. Paint is fairly inexpensive and transforms a room more quickly than anything else, so you can afford to experiment a little.

Read more: http://freshome.com/2007/04/17/room-color-and-how-it-affects-your-mood/#ixzz3Opf2LHp1 

Yellow captures the joy of sunshine and communicates happiness.

This is an important subject to tackle before getting too far in decorating a new home or making significant changes in existing space. It is easy to do right, there is a lot of help out there!