This section is from the book "The Principles Of Interior Decoration", by Bernard C. Jakway. Also available from Amazon: The Principles of Interior Decoration.
Present-day practice has worked out a method through which one can both eat his cake and keep it. The character of a red dining room or library may be changed in half an hour by covering the hangings and chairs with slip covers of cretonne, and by this simple and inexpensive device the room may be adapted alternately to summer and winter weather, while each change by contrast gives a new charm.
Yellow can be used as a dominant hue in any room, though it seems most fitting in the drawing room and breakfast room, and least fitting in the bedroom. The peculiar excellence of yellow lies in its cheerful and even joyous animation, its defect in an impersonal quality that makes it difficult to use in any apartment in which an effect of intimacy or camaraderie is aimed at.
Yellow is the most adaptable of all the colors. It is effective in all values, from the palest cream to the darkest yellow-brown, and is equally at home in the cheapest or the most sumptuous surroundings. A drawing room may be done in paneled and painted ivory walls, old Chinese rugs, yellow damask hangings, satin-wood and lacquered furniture and costly bric-a-brac, as a living room may be done in yellow calcimined walls, Sundour or cretonne hangings, fumed oak and willow furniture and inexpensive bric-a-brac - provided, of course, that the things are good in line and color - and the result will in each case be happy. Where yellow is made dominant in any room except the drawing room or breakfast room, the choice is usually determined by some other consideration than the purpose of the room.
As a dominant hue blue seems best adapted by nature to the bedroom, and least adapted to the breakfast room. It may be made dominant in any of the other rooms, though its coldness makes it a somewhat inhospitable color for the hall. As with yellow, the choice of blue is ordinarily based upon considerations either of lighting or of personal preference. It must always be influenced by the emotional purpose or motive of the room, whatever its practical purpose may be. Blue is by nature suggestive of stillness and inactivity, and it tends to impart these qualities to any decorative treatment in which it appears, in direct proportion to its area and intensity. Thus it will concur, as the dominant hue, in expressing ideas of tranquillity, repose, formality and elegance, but it will not concur in the ideas of animation and gayety.
Orange is most pleasant as the dominant hue when the yellow element in it is markedly in excess of the red. The browns have orange as a base. The red browns, produced from red-orange, are hot, aggressive and unmanageable colors. The golden browns, on the contrary, have something of the cheerfulness and animation of yellow and something of the warmth and hospitality of red, and are therefore excellent for living room, library and hall. They are too dead for the drawing room, and, in general, too lacking in individuality and force for the dining room.
Where violet - and this is also true of red-violet, or purple - is used as the dominant hue, its choice will always be determined by personal preference rather than by any innate fitness for a particular room. Violet will concur in effects of repose, dignity and elegance, and, in the higher values, of reticence and daintiness. Purple will concur in effects of dignity, sumptuousness and splendor. Its subdued warmth and subtle emotional qualities give it great value and distinction in decorative work, but it must be used only by those who like it.
Green may be made the dominant hue in any room where its quality of restful coolness is desired. Gray-greens and the broken tones of yellow-green are pleasantly suggestive of verdure and of nature in her softer moods. Green is, however, an earthy color, and its calmness has little of the spiritual quality of blue. The greens vary widely in character and emotional value as they pass from somber blue-green to sunny yellow-green, and as they change in value from dark to light. Moreover, they vary surprisingly in pleasantness, not only with purity but also with the texture in which they appear and the light under which they are seen. Some green textiles are hopelessly commonplace and uninteresting. On the other hand, many of the greens to be found in fine velvets and deep-pile rugs possess a distinction and charm not surpassed by any color and approached by few. The normal hue is unpleasant and, far from being restful, has an irritating quality, more potent to exhaust nervous energy than any other hue.
Color must be used to supplement or correct nature in making our rooms warm and sunny or cool and dim. Hence the choice of the dominant hue is often conditioned by the nature and amount of light received by the room to be decorated. If the light is deficient in quantity it must be conserved and diffused through the use, not only of high values, but also of hues possessing a high degree of luminosity. If it is deficient in warmth and brightness these qualities must be supplied by warm and bright colors. If it is hot or over-bright these defects must be remedied by cool and relatively non-luminous colors. The luminosity of the spectrum hues was discussed in the chapter on light and shade. It remains here to discuss their relative warmth. Red is the warmest color and blue the coldest, with orange, yellow and green between them on one side of the chromatic circle and purple and violet on the other side. Rooms with a north light require relatively warm coloring, and rooms with a south light relatively cool; and as a general but by no means an invariable rule one of the warm colors will be made dominant in a north or northeast room, and one of the cool colors in a south or southwest room. It is to be noted, however, that, while very sunny rooms require cool colors, they are most pleasant when light tones of those colors are employed. Light blues and greens temper and cool an over-sunny room; dark, cold tones of those hues would destroy the character of the room, being markedly inconsistent with its light, sunny and somewhat gay nature. On the other hand, north rooms are in general most pleasant with darker tones of the warm hues, for the same reasons of congruity. Of course this does not mean that light, cool colors only are to be used in sunny rooms, or dark, warm colors only in north rooms. It means simply that the dominant hues and tones must vary with the light, subject to the general requirement of congruity that the tone of all colors will be progressively lowered with the increasing size of the room. Neutral gray has no place in north rooms. Where there is plenty of north light, a very warm gray - say a light sand - can be used on the walls in conjunction with rugs, hangings, upholstery stuffs and accessories in which red, rose, orange or golden yellows are emphasized; but where there is only a little north light the room must have yellow. As an extreme instance we may take a dining room on the north side of a house shut in by hills and trees. Such a room, if small, could be treated with cream paneled walls and trim, a plain or self-tone rose-red rug, and chintz hangings containing rose-reds, blues and corn-yellows on a cream ground; or, if larger and more imposing, with black lacquered woodwork, soft yellow damask or grass-cloth walls, an orange-gold plain rug, and hangings of brocade in colors ranging from orange-red to the yellow of the walls.
 
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