The principles of proper use of colour in house interiors are not difficult to master.  It is unthinking, unreflective action which makes so many unrestful interiors of homes.  The creator of a home should consider, in the first place, that it is a matter as important as climate, and as difficult to get away from, and that the first shades of colour used in a room upon walls or ceiling, must govern everything else that enters in the way of furnishing; that the colour of walls prescribes that which must be used in floors, curtains, and furniture.  Not that these must necessarily be of the same tint as walls, but that wall-tints must govern the choice.

All this makes it necessary to take first steps carefully, to select for each room the colour which will best suit the taste, feeling, or bias of the occupant, always considering the exposure of the room and the use of it.

After the relation of colour to light is established—­with personal preferences duly taken into account—­the next law is that of gradation.  The strongest, and generally the purest, tones of colour belong naturally at the base, and the floor of a room means the base upon which the scheme of decoration is to be built.

The carpet, or floor covering, should carry the strongest tones.  If a single tint is to be used, the walls must take the next gradation, and the ceiling the last.  These gradations must be far enough removed from each other in depth of tone to be quite apparent, but not to lose their relation.  The connecting grades may appear in furniture covering and draperies, thus giving different values in the same tone, the relation between them being perfectly apparent.  These three masses of related colour are the groundwork upon which one can play infinite variations, and is really the same law upon which a picture is composed.  There are foreground, middle-distance, and sky—­and in a properly coloured room, the floors, walls, and ceiling bear the same relation to each other as the grades of colour in a picture, or in a landscape.

Fortunately we keep to this law almost by instinct, and yet I have seen a white-carpeted floor in a room with a painted ceiling of considerable depth of colour.  Imagine the effect where this rule of gradation or ascending scale is reversed.  A tinted floor of cream colour, or even white, and a ceiling as deep in colour as a landscape.  One feels as if they themselves were reversed, and standing upon their heads.  Certainly if we ignore this law we lose our sense of base or foundation, and although we may not know exactly why, we shall miss the restfulness of a properly constructed scheme of decoration.