Above: Photo courtesy of Harry Art Furniture. Harry Segil creates furniture designed to bring color, energy, and happiness into your home. Visit his website at www.coolharryfurniture.com, or call (310) 559-7863 for more information.

Science has proved the connection between color and mood. At the turn of the last century, psychologist Carl Jung wrote: "Colors are the mother tongue of the subconscious."

Colors can encourage us to relax or to be energetic; they can make us feel happy or sad; and they can stir up old memories -- good and bad. This is why it's a mistake to ignore your "gut reaction" to certain colors: your emotional response may be linked to a memory, or it can be an intuitive knowledge of which colors will restore your spirit and which will leave you feeling upset or drained.It's important to recognize that color affects not only how a room looks, but also how it feels. So if you hate -- or even mildly dislike -- the latest designer color, don't decorate with it -- or at least use it very sparingly as an accent.

Color and your emotional and physical health are strongly linked. Everyone knows of an angry and depressed teenager who has wanted to paint his bedroom black. Although teenagers do require some freedom to personalize their living space, black probably isn't the best choice for good mental health.

Try this exercise: close your eyes and imagine yourself in a bedroom decorated entirely in black (the walls, the furniture -- everything). How are you feeling? Now imagine yourself in a bedroom decorated in warm honey tones, whites and creams, lilac, peach, or pale gray. How do you feel now?

Good Vibrations

Above: Color brings life to a room. It can play tricks with your senses, making a room feel bigger or smaller, warmer or cooler than it really is. This bright kitchen makes your heart sing, using vivid secondary colors to bring the space to life. The brilliant contrasting and harmonious colors will act like a tonic for those using this room. Photo courtesy of Glidden Paints; visit their website at www.gliddenpaints.com.

When you're decorating, you not only have to consider which colors evoke positive feelings in you, but also whether the mood they inspire is appropriate for the particular room. For instance, you may adore red -- it makes you feel passionate, energetic, and vital. But decorate your bedroom entirely in red and you may have created a place where it's impossible to relax -- much less actually sleep.

Your choice of colors will reflect your personality, and they'll also help to create an atmosphere conducive to relaxing, working, or entertaining. Color can make a huge, echoing space seem cozy, and a small room seem spacious and inviting. Color can draw attention to a room's good features while down-playing the less-attractive elements.

Color is one of the most important aspects to successful decorating, but few people take the time to really think about creating a harmonious home with colors that stimulate or calm, excite or create a sense of tranquility depending on the room's function. Here's an introduction to colors: how they can affect you, and how to use them in home decoration.

Understanding Color

Above: This simplified version of the color wheel contains only "primary" (red, yellow, and blue) and "secondary" (orange, purple, and green) colors. This wheel contains three "complementary" pairs (contrasting colors that lie across from each other on the wheel) and three "analogous" pairs (harmonious colors that lie side-by-side on the wheel).

One of the basic tools used in color selection is the color wheel. The first color wheel was created by Sir Isaac Newton in the seventeenth century; since then, there have been many additions and refinements. The wheel represents the visible spectrum -- the colors of the rainbow -- arranged with analogous ("harmonious") colors next to each other and contrasting ("complementary") colors opposite one another. Most color wheels contain 12 different colors: three "primary," three "secondary," and three "tertiary" colors.

The three primary colors are red, yellow, and blue. They're called "primary" because they are pure, original hues that can't be created by mixing other colors together. The three secondary colors, which lie between pairs of primary colors, are created by mixing equal amounts of the pairs they lie between. The secondary colors are orange (between red and yellow), green (between yellow and blue), and purple (between blue and red). The tertiary colors are created by mixing analogous (side-by-side) primary and secondary colors together.

There are also three "neutral" or "non-colors": white, black, and gray. You can add neutrals to any of the colors to change the shade: adding white creates pastel, black deepens the color, and gray creates a mid-tone somewhere between the two.

Here's a simplified version of a color wheel (left): one that contains only primary and secondary colors.

First, notice that the wheel can be divided into two halves: one comprised of "warm" colors (red, orange, yellow) and one of "cool" colors (purple, blue, green). The warms are long-wavelength colors, which seem to be coming towards you. The short-wavelength cools, on the other hand, appear to recede when you look at them.

Above: Most color wheels contain 12 different colors: three primary, three secondary, and three tertiary colors. The tertiary colors are created by mixing analogous primary and secondary colors together.

This wheel (right) contains three complementary pairs (colors that lie across from each other on the wheel): red-green, blue-orange, and yellow-purple. Using complementary colors generally creates a stimulating, dynamic effect, so be cautious about using lots of strong contrasts in a room where you want to relax -- strong red and green are not the best choices for a bedroom, for instance.