The Color Red in Home Decorating
by Joey Pebble

Description: Tips for introducing the color red into your home decor without letting it become too overpowering.

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Red is the most powerful color in your decorating palette. It is the color of blood, the color of love, the color of war, and just seeing it can change how a person thinks, reacts, and experiences a situation. Understanding these subtle yet potent effects will give you important insight when decorating an environment.

When people enter a space, they take in visual cues about the world around them. This tells them how to act and react in that environment. The presence of the color red tends to excite people; it can raise their metabolism, make them hungry, or even make them angry. It is an exciting color that is noticed right away, and will make a mark on a persons psyche.

There are many shades of red that are available. Lighter shades will trend all of the way down to pink, and will generally be more strongly associated with love and family. The darker the shade of red gets, the more serious it is, with passionate or even violent overtones evoked in some tones.

One of the most important things to understand about the color red in an environment is that it is an invigorating color. It makes people more active, more vigorous, more likely to get up and do something. If you are creating a space where you want people to be inspired and active then red is a great color to use.

The problem is that all of this energy can get redirected, and often red is associated with violent, and angry overtones. Use too much red, and the people in a space might start to think of blood, war, and other negative symbols associated with this color. This can lead to anger, conflict, and a multitude of interpersonal problems down the road.

For this reason, red is generally used in small amounts, as an accent color, to liven up less interesting spaces and colors. These small hints of red are often enough to give passion and energy to a space, without overwhelming it.

Another interesting property of the color red is that it tends to make people hungrier. This is a fact that has been used by restaurants for years, to make people hungrier when they enter the environment. In many restaurants they will actually bathe the room in a red or amber light, as if they were casting a magic hunger spell over the atmosphere.

This property can be a great way to make a dining room which is naturally enticing, and which will actually enhance the quality of your food. On the other hand, the color red used in the wrong space can lead you to being hungry for no reason, and snacking a little too often. This is the reason that some chefs won’t allow the color red to be used extensively in their kitchens.

Another important aspect of the color red is that it is strongly associated with romance. Using red accessories in a bedroom is one time honored way to put some fire back into a relationship. Using red sheets, pillow cases, and other bedding in this color is especially popular for this particular trick.

The color red is an undeniably powerful color that can have a dramatic effect on the ambiance of a space. Its presence instantly adds power, passion, and inspiration to a room. If used too extensively this can be a bad thing, creating an atmosphere that is ripe for a fight. However if you take a balanced approach, using the color red in strategic places to achieve a desired effect, it can be a vital tool in your decorating toolbox.

This article was produced on behalf of PebbleZ.com’s artistic line of http://pebblez.com/stone-wall-clocks.html, which are made entirely from unique pieces of natural stone. The article was written by Joey Pebble, one of the artists responsible for this line of clocks.

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