Colour in your home

1. Read and translate the text. What is the main idea of the text?

2. Find unknown terms and words in the text and give their translations?

Do you know what colour makes you feel happier? If you can select a dress that complements your natural colouring, then you will have no difficulty in selecting the key colour for the interior of your home.

Choose a colour that you want to live with and it will be the key colour throughout your home. This is what interior designers call colour continuity. In a single room or all over the house, this repeating of a colour brings unity.

Colour continuity is important. When one room opens into another, the colours may change places in the second room but a colour continuity must be preserved. For instance, the blue of the wall in one room may drop to the floor or rise to the ceiling in the other room. But, there is a reason to break the sequence; the major colour scheme should be carried through to the adjacent room.

Colour is a wonderful tool in interior design. It can camouflage bad architectural detail; it can emphasize the beauty of good architectural detail. Colour can make a room appear smaller. It can make a room appear larger.

We have said that you cannot use a colour once, then drop it and you cannot use a colour high on the wall without bringing it down into the room. Remember this when you are contemplating a contrasting valance at your window. The valance will turn out to be an eye-catching, objectionable room feature if you do not make it a part of the room by covering some pieces of furniture, not necessarily in the same fabric, but in the same colour.

And this brings us to say that colour used intelligently can do more to make a room both comfortable and beautiful than any other factor, almost as much as all other factors used in its design.

Colour, texture, and pattern contribute to the home´s liveability because they also were purposefully planned. Cheerful, light-reflecting colours predominate. White on the ceiling increases the sense of spaciousness and reflects light down onto the subtly textured tawny carpet. Walls of very pale yellow become harmonious backgrounds for the natural birch of the chests, television, desk and for the greyed orange covers on the studio couches. Against this warm colour scheme based on yellow and orange, the black frames of the two chairs and the clear blues and greens of the curtains, the pillows, and the chairs’ upholstery are refreshingly cool, subordinate accents. Walls and ceiling are smooth plaster. The birch in the furniture is also smooth to touch, but the grain brings a visual texture. Textures that you can feel as well as see are introduced in all of the textiles. Small-scale, unobtrusive patterns in draperies, pillows, and upholstery add interest and variety. Paintings, sculptures, books and magazines, accessories, lighting fixtures and the occupants’ clothes bring additional contrast.

This room is comfortable and attractive. Why? Because it was developed to fill basic human needs. No matter what the art form may be – a modest home or a magnificent mansion, a kitchen chair or a community mural – human needs and interests deserve first consideration.

3. Answer the questions:

1 What is colour continuity ?

2 Why is colour continuity important?.

3 How can a colour continuity be preserved?

4 What are the effects of colour in interior design?

5 Can you use a colour high on the wall without bringing it down into the room ?

6 What are the advantages of colour used intelligently ?

4. Ask your groupmates to find answers in the text.

5. Discuss the content of the text in the form of a dialogue.