b'tips and trickshide, disguise,enhancePaint is your friend when it comes to tricking the eye. ReseneWhite ThunderDoes your living room look too long, or just plain wrong? Does the ceiling seem to be falling on your head? And why do you have to turn the lights on whenever you go into the dining room? Before you ring up the builder and ask him to take away or add walls, or raise the ceiling, theres a much cheaper and cleverer way of correcting weird proportions or disguising architectural oddities and less-than-perfect details. And thats with paint. Firstly look at the dimensions of your room, where the light comes from and what you wish to highlight or disguise. Used with care, colourwilldowonderfulthingstothemostunprepossessingof spaces. It can also link a whole interior together, or break it down into discrete moments of magic. Here are some rules of thumb: Dark colours make a space smaller or lower. Paint an end feature wall dark in a long thin space to bring it forward, or darker on three walls and light on one of the long walls if you want to improve the proportions. Use a single interesting colour on feature walls throughout an open-plan interior (either in the same strength orResenetones of the same) and feel the spaces talk to each other. TsunamiLight colours recede and bounce available light around and cant be beaten in small well-lit spaces. If the room is naturally gloomy, however, its unlikely youll solve all its problems with a can of white paint. You might do better to make the walls warm and intimate while keeping the ceiling and woodwork pale to give it drama and definition. All colours have emotional properties. For example, red and orange stimulate,bluecools,greensoothesandpurpleisthemoody queen. For the best results it is always better to work with these properties, not against them. For example, a gentle green in the bedroom is always a winner, while soft shades of raspberry red seem to do wonders in a traditional dining room. RightUsing Resene EzyPaint software, you can try the look of a room before you commit to buying a room-lot of paint. Were you after a cool and sophisticated yet summery look with Resene Tsunami (top)? The ceiling is painted Resene Alabaster to make the room appear more airy and spacious. Or do you feel the room is too long and narrow? Try painting just the end wall in a darker colour, like Resene Triple Tapa, to make it appear closer. Go toResenewww.resene.com/ezypaint and try virtual painting for yourself. Triple Tapa 53'