Is your bedroom too small? Do you wish your family room felt more intimate? Colour has the power to manipulate our sense of space. Using light hues from one colour family will create an optical illusion of sorts by visually expanding a room. If a ceiling feels too low, bright white can "raise" your perception of its height. By taking a cue from clothing designers, adventuresome homeowners can paint their walls with vertical stripes also to enhance the sense of height. This technique can be applied with great success in a play space for children.

When the objective is to make a large room feel cozy and intimate, paint colour can again do the trick. Choosing darker shades for the walls will reign in a large space and a darker shade on a tall ceiling will "lower" it. If colour alone isn't enough use colour to create visual breaks. Divide your wall space horizontally with a chair rail and paint the upper and lower portions different colours. Picture mouldings are another visual device. Paint the interior portion a different shade from the rest of the wall.