| Hello to all the new homemakers who want to make their homes a quiet bower of bliss. With all the free information available in home making, there is no reason to hesitate to improve the look of each room in your home. These pictures come from the Better Homes and Gardens website. This wonderful place provides free instruction on arrangement, color and decorating your home. While we at L.A.F. realize that decorating is only a superficial part of making a house a real home, we do believe that women are more content in their roles as full time homemakers if they can live in a beautiful environment. Even the Israelites in the Old Testament decorated their homes with panelling and tiled ceilings. The Better Homes site will take you on a tour of rooms that will give you some ideas of things to do to improve the appearance of your home. With all the work there is to do in the house, that little decorating touch that gives you a lift will be the crowning touch to your house keeping. |  |
The colors in a home have an effect on our senses. The pictures you will see on these pages are not real homes, but specially decorated spaces to provide you with ideas. Your goal is not to imitate the room exactly, but to come up with ideas that will resemble them. The first room (above) shows the effect of pink in a room. This hue can give a room a peaceful, relaxing look.
This wonderful blue kitchen is light and spacious. Blue has several meanings. Blue is like the sky, or heavenly, and blue is calming.
 | To those of you who are trying to dress better, you will no doubt notice that certain colors and styles of clothing can either make you feel optimistic and cheerful, or drab and depressed. The same principle applies to colors of the home. The yellow room seen here evokes a feeling of hope and joy, almost a celebration. Yellow is like the sun, or a bowl of lemons. It has a freshness about it. If you like yellow, use it to keep your moods on an even keel, and prevent chronic depression. |
| The room you see here is decorated with a combination of yellow and blue, with bright spots of red. Red has an energetic feeling to it and provides cheerfulness in plain rooms. Each room here, you will notice, has a basic background "canvas" of the walls. What color are the walls in each picture? Please keep in mind that these rooms are not as homey as yours will be, because they do not have the real belongings of real families in them. Your own things will add character and meaning to your rooms. |  |
There are other colors which have different effects on the human mind. Green has a healthy, outdoorsy feeling. Black, used mostly for accents, provides drama and dignity in a room. White is like the clouds in the sky; it reminds us of cleanliness and of certain comfort foods. It is often used as background color. There are many other colors to consider, which will be covered in future articles.
 | Here we see a lighthearted room for a little girl, yet not the traditional pink. Besides showing the effect of green and blue in creating a joyful feeling, it shows how you can use grownup furnishings to provide a room for a girl. |
| This is an interesting combination of the joy of yellow, the healthy freshness of green, and the energy of red. Keep in mind when you decorate that the idea is not to copy exactly what is done here, but to use what you have to give you a feeling of contentment or inspiration in that room. You will notice that although not everything matches like a set, it all combines beautifully to make a place you would want to live. Since Americans are now using their homes more for home business, homeschooling and hospitality, it is becoming important to them what colors are used in them. You as the homemaker will spend many more hours within the confines of your own home and grounds, and it will become doubly important to you to decorate in a style and color that pleases you. |  |
If you cannot achieve this, you can at least keep a little sketchbook in which you use watercolor pencils to draw up your dream scheme for your rooms. You can also collect clippings from magazines that will help you decorate. Sometimes working in that little book can be so relaxing that it takes away your worry of not having what you need right away.
To get an idea of how color affects people, take a lesson from the Creation. Sightseeing, walks, hikes and excursions can give you many insights into colors for the home. Gaining as much experience as you can in the use of color will enable you to decorate your own home pleasingly, and prepare you to counsel future homemakers.
