The amount of wall space and the quality and the quantity of the light are important factors in deciding the color scheme because by using them correctly we can brighten a cheerless, dark room or soften the blaze in a too sunny one.

If the light is a cold dreary one from the north, the room will be vastly improved if warm, cheerful colors are used:  warm ivory, deep cream color, soft or bright yellow without any greenish tinge in it, soft yellow pinks (there is a hard pink which is very ugly), yellow green (but not olive), and tones of golden tan.  It is the dash of yellow in these colors which makes them cheerful and gives the impression of sunlight.  Tans should never come too close to brown for a dark room, for nothing is more dreary or hopeless than a room done in that depressing color.  The beautiful tones of old oak, or properly treated modern oak paneling, are quite a different matter.  Small amounts of red or orange will do wonders, if used with discretion, in brightening a dull room, and are often just what are needed to bring out the beauty of the rest of the scheme; but it is a great mistake to think that red walls and a great deal of red in the hangings and furniture covering will make a cheerful or pleasant room.  Red absorbs light and is also an irritant to the eyes and nerves, and, unless it is used with great skill, it is apt to look extremely commonplace and ugly or like an ostentatious hotel or public building.  Few of us have large enough houses to make it possible to use red in great amounts, and it is well for the average person to shun it and remember that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a red wall will spoil a room.

[Illustration:  There are few treatments for walls in a Colonial dining-room that can compare with paneled walls, or wainscoting with a decorative paper above.  The subject, however, must be in keeping.  This paper is extremely inappropriate, and the center light is also badly chosen and could be eliminated.]

Cool colors should be used in bright and sunny rooms—­blues, greens, grays, grayish tans, and those delightful colors, old ivory, and soft deep cream color and linen color.  Colors with a tone of yellow in them are easier to use than cold blues and greens and violets, for the yellow tinge, be it ever so little, brings them into relation with the majority of woods used in floors and furniture frames.  Light colors make a room seem larger by apparently making the walls recede, and dark colors make it seem smaller, as they make us conscious of the walls and so seem to bring them nearer.  Any very bright room may have dark walls to soften the glare, but if it has to be used by artificial light it will then be heavy and cheerless in effect; and so a better choice would be some soft neutral color of medium or lighter color values, such as gray green, and use awnings and dark shades.  This matter of color in relation to light is important to remember when planning one’s house.