By Ruth Nabukenya

Asimple touch of colour can perform unexpected wonders to your house interior. It can transform your home from a dull and lifeless place to an attractive habitat. Small rooms can be made to appear larger and large rooms smaller. Blending the right colours together is all it takes to make your house more intimate. Just pick a paint brush and practice these simple principles.

“If you want to diminish the size of a large, spaced room, accumulating more furniture to fill it up may be rather expensive. A person can opt for a simple refurnish,” says Joyce Maitum, an interior designer in Kampala.

“Naturally, dark colours tend to move towards you and make a room appear smaller. This helps reduce the sense of space in a room.”

She says warm colours like red, orange and yellow can be used for making large spaces warm and cozy, thus making the room more intimate. If used in the kitchen, they stimulate one’s appetite towards the food. This helps eliminate the feeling of emptiness produced by a large room. Soft and non-reflective colours may also help reduce space.

On the other hand, in case you want to ‘enlarge’ a small room, light reflective colours will do. These make a room appear much larger than it actually is. White and cream will make a room appear more spacious.

“You may opt for a striped design for wall painting, depending on your taste. Vertical stripes make a room appear much longer in height, while horizontal ones will make it appear smaller,” notes Judith Kironde, another interior designer.

By applying these rules you can re-size any room in your house just the way you want it. so, if you were considering reconstruction to get your ideal size of a room or house, your answer may be a few metres away. All you need is some paint and a brush. Then you can reconstruct your home in a day.