Guest blog post: Room therapy with Andrea Schumacher

Interior designer Andrea Schumacher of Denver-based O Interior Design offers expert counsel on how different rooms can stir different emotionsâand how to create the right mood in your own space.

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How do these rooms make you feel? A poorly designed room with too much of one color could make you feel ill, angry or any number of other emotions, depending on your experience and associations with that color. Two of these spaces (above left, and center) are cluttered with too many patterns and shades of pink. If you’re absolutely in love with pink, you could take a calmer approach and use splashes of pink throughout a room, as shown in image on the far right.

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Other elements in a space can alter your mood, such as smells, lighting, texture and what you see. A deciding factor of how a room effects you emotionally is your own personal experience with all of these sensory elements. Also, if a room doesn’t function well for the task you are trying to complete, it’s not going to be desirable.

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Unity and organization refer to the usefulness of a space. This is key to having a functioning space. In a kitchen, if the space is dark and disorganized, the task of cooking is going to be difficult. The kitchens above are well-illuminated and have a sense of cleanliness and order. The greens in these kitchens give the spaces a sense of life, nature and health, making you want to take care of your body and eat well.

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Light can set the mood of a room. If you want the room to feel romantic, then you would use a warm light like an incandescent, or a fluorescent that mimics an incandescent. In the orange bedroom above, the design plays with light and texture, as well as color, to give the feel of Egyptian romance. In the living room, natural daylight is used with neutral colors and accents of orange to create a joyful atmosphere.
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Yellow and purple are opposites on the color wheel and have opposite associationsâand can evoke very different reactions. If you feel like being energized or creative, yellow is the color to surround yourself with. Purple has been the color of royalty for centuries and still is associated with luxury and class.
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When you walk into a restaurant, you want it to be comfortable, and to feel like you’re welcome there. You want it to feel like itâs your home. Lime, a Denver restaurant that we designed, sets the mood for a romantic night using warm oranges, reds and yellows through lighting techniques. Spaces have power!