Home. It is where we cook our meals, invite our friends to visit, and go to sleep.
It is also a placethat can reflect our personality. The process of taking a home or
a room and giving it color, furniture, and style is called interior design. Think
about where you live. What would a stranger know about you if he or she walked
into your home or room? White walls, wooden floors, and a few pieces of modern
furniture suggest that you are a calm and organized person. Colorful walls, books
and pictures, and lots of furniture suggest you are a more energetic and active
person. How you choose to design your home or room says something to the world
about who you are.It tells the world about your interests and about your personal identity.
One important aspect of interior design is balance. This means there is a good
combination of colors and furniture so that a room feels somfortable. How do
people achieve balance in their homes? Some people use feng shui to help them
with this aspect of design. Feng shui is an Eastern philosophy. It teaches that
all parts of people's lives should balance two kinds of energy-yin and yang.
Yin is the quiet, passive energy, whereas yang is the strong and active energy.
According to this hpilosophy, a living space with a good balance of these two
types of energy brings good luck, health, and happiness.
Feng shui provides guidelines about how to decorate a room. In a bedroom,
for example, the head of the bed shoule point in the correct direction.
It should point north for an older married couple. North is a quiet, peaceful
direction. For a young adult, however, feng shui says the the head of the bed
should point south. This direction has more energy and passion. The head of
the bed must not point northeast because this direction causes nightmares.
Also, a bedroom should not have any mirrors in it because mirrors make it
difficult to remove negative energy.
Color is another important aspect of interior design. Different colors have
different emotional and physical effects on people. For example, people usually
feel that red is the most exciting and stimulating color. For this reason, it
is not a good color for a bedroom. Many people say they have nightmares if they
sleep in a red room. In contrast, green is a more peaceful color. In some
cultures green means health and good luck, so it is a popular color. Blue is
also a good color in most cultures. It represents peace and stability. According
to some studies, it is a masuline color; men often choose it for their living
spaces. White, however, is used more than any other color in interior design.
White is the combination of all colors, so it is a color of balance. It is
often used in small rooms because it reflects light and therefore makes a
small room look bigger. In addition, it does not conflict with other colors in
the room.
Small homes and rooms create special challenges for architects and interior
designers. Some architects and designers are specialists in small living spaces.
They try to make them both functional and attractive. In Japen, these small
living spaces are called kyosho jutaku. For example, windows appear anywhere
across a wall or in the ceiling, to allow as much light as possible into narrow
spaces. Furniture folds into the wall, which allows one room to be used in
many different ways. A bed may have a desk, chair, and dresser underneath it.
Traditional desighers think of horizontal, or floor space. In contrast, designers
of small living spaces say that they try to use three-dimentional space. For
example, they may put storage space, such as closets or bookshelves, high on walls,
above other furniture.
Whether we live in a large home, a small apartment, or one room, we spend the
majority of our time at home. Our homes need to meet our basic needs of sleeping,
eating, and washing. However, for most of us, our living spaces do a lot more
than that. By using a combination of balance, color, and arrangement, our homes
can be functional, and attractive, and they reflect our personalities.