Warm reds can appear to advance
in a room, enhancing a cozy
feel.

Introduction

You know the formula by heart: warm colors advance and cool colors recede.

The advice that usually follows this statement is to paint the walls a cool color if you want a room to seem larger; if you want it to feel smaller, bathe the walls with a warm hue. Unfortunately, it isn't that simple.

A bold green or blue can pull in the walls around you just as effectively as the warmest red, while a soft yellow can make the walls seem to dissolve, enhancing the sense of space. It's a matter of value -- lightness or darkness -- and intensity (how saturated or pure a color is) as much as temperature.

Mood Changes and More: In general, lighter, paler, or less intense colors will enlarge the apparent space; darker or more intense colors will shrink it. The impact of color on space is also a question of mood. Color affects your mood, which in turn affects your perception of a space and your comfort level in it.

Remember, too, that neighboring colors affect each other. If you juxtapose two colors, the eye will perceive them to be as different from each other as possible.

Complements -- colors that lie directly opposite each other on the color wheel -- intensify each other. If you use red and green in a room together, the red will seem more red and the green will appear more green.

Every scheme needs a dollop of contrast to intrigue the eye and to feel balanced and lively. When you work with complements, you automatically have that contrast. An analogous scheme of warm or cool colors will require the addition of an element of the opposite temperature to give the scheme punch.