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Living in shades
Syed Ishtiaque Reza
10/12/2005
Zareen, a student of KG-1 in a city English Medium school, did not like her room in their new apartment. The reason is that the wall's colour is off-white. She wants something shining. And finally she convinced her parents to think of a bright pink wall and a floor with blue and white tiles.
This is a modern day kids' room. The drawing room may have pleasing blue walls and the kitchen, a shade of light brown.
With the growth of apartments in the big cities, people are becoming choosy about colours and the painting companies are offering exciting shades too.
In fact people today do not like houses with monotonous white walls in every room. From their basic and utilitarian function, paints have come a long way to adding character to the walls they adorn.
Colours set the emotional tone, and moreover, influence the moods of people. Next time you feel strangely peaceful on entering certain rooms, remember it could be the paint that is making you feel better.
Paints can also create an illusion of space. Using the lightest value of any colour can make the room look bigger. Similarly, using dark shades for large areas will make the room appear oppressive. The same applies to ceilings. Using light shades for the ceiling can make it appear higher.
The colours in each room speak for themselves. As the name suggests, warm colours such as yellow and orange are inviting, energetic and will make you feel comfortable. So they are most suitable for living rooms. Cool shades such as green, blue and purple are ideal for bedrooms.
One can sport a rainbow on the wall, having favourite cartoon characters painted on them or maybe even have an entire galaxy on the ceiling what with the variety of options offered by paint companies.
Most of the companies have spectrometers, computer programmed machines that would give the exact colour a client wants. Just like the tinting machines, these would also help the customer mix and match colours on a computer monitor, to get an idea of how the chosen colour would look on his or her house.
It helps customers make the right choice. The manuals offered by the companies too are complete by themselves, with suggestions in lighting, trimming and furnishing.
There are no rigid colour schemes for interiors. Everything depends on the choice of people. Even without following any rule, one can use random shades to give an entirely new look to your house. A combination of three colours in a single room, called the triad scheme, can give it a wacky look. On the other hand, using different shades of the same colour in a room can add a touch of class. A border in a contrasting shade would accentuate the shade of the walls.
In addition to the elaborate colour schemes, paints also come with additional features such as anti-insect, anti-fungus and anti-dust mite properties. Anti-mould and anti-bacterial paints are also available in the market.
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