Color Therapy at Home: Real-Life Solutions for Adding Color to Your Life [Hardcover]

Mark McCauley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2000

Color is one of the first elements you notice when you walk into a room, and color resonates with you when you leave. Color sets a mood: The right color combinations can transform our home and bring all who live there new levels of energy.

Color Therapy at Home: Real-life Solutions for Adding Color to Your Life will show you how to surround yourself with colors that bring you the most happiness, harmony, and well-being. Unlock the secrets of color therapy and use them to release your inner self.

Bring color to the forefront of your home's décor and explore how the right tone can be an antidote for stress and tension.

--Learn the properties and associations of each color.

--Discover hands-on design advice for decorating with color in your house or apartment.

--Find the color underpinnings of calm, stimulating, soothing, or inspiring spaces.

--Determine your personal color preferences, and pick the dominant, secondary, and accent colors for each room of your home with an ingenious color quiz.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Color Therapy at Home presents an imaginative investigation into the subtle yet powerful effects of color in our everyday lives. Mark McCauley, an accomplished interior designer, explains why we associate certain emotional, physical, or intellectual traits with reds, yellows, greens, or blues. Blues, for example, provide feelings of restoration and clarity. Reds, on the other hand, lend an active, dynamic energy to a room. Dozens of dramatic photos illustrate how colors work alone and in combination to achieve desired effects. A clear vase of vibrant red cherries, for example, forms a witty complement to a wall painted a nurturing pale green. McCauley's writing is extremely associative, as when he asserts that "brown is the homburg hat of life. It is the furtive sip from the little brown jug that provides momentary warmth on cold winter afternoons."

Practical designer tips, such as how to test your color choices, tint ceilings, or dress your interiors in colors you love to wear, enhance the inspiring photographs and engaging text. The book closes with a chart of 264 traits one may wish to increase in one's life--such as healing, trusting, or understanding--then keys each trait to specific colors. For anyone planning to redesign an entire home or simply repaint the kitchen pantry, Color Therapy at Home is provocative guide to color's profound effects on our interior well-being. --Mary Ribesky

From the Publisher

Packed with photos of real-life inspiring interiors, this book will help you select your favorite hues and color combinations and understand why certain colors strike a chord with you.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: Rockport Publishers (December 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564966259
• ISBN-13: 978-1564966254
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,147,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome and inspiring, great tips, June 12, 2001

By 

Angel Lee "Liocorno Amethyst Moonstone" (Cleveland, OH United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Color Therapy at Home: Real-Life Solutions for Adding Color to Your Life (Hardcover)

The décor in this book is awesome and inspiring. There were very few room designs I didn't like. The rooms all have strong personality with a simple modern look. There are no flowery or country looks here.

The book is split into two sections. The first focuses on what colors are associated with in our lives. Objects are shown and their effects on emotions are discussed. It also explains and demonstrates the excellent and very useful 60-30-10 color rule.

The second section focuses on color functions for serenity, fantasy, healing, clarity, nurturing and spirituality. Here more full rooms are shown. I love the tips for formality, informality, local color schemes and stages of life. I also like the use of flower bouquet accents (fresh or silk) in lots of the rooms. They really add spice to the décor.

The color choice quiz in back of the book is great. It really helps you pick the best colors for any room in your home based on what personality you want it to have. If you want to truly use color to create the perfect atmosphere in any room get this book.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Color Choice Quiz seperates this book from the pack, December 13, 2002

By 

Amy Hilliard (VA, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Color Therapy at Home: Real-Life Solutions for Adding Color to Your Life (Hardcover)

Pluses:
The photographs in this book are great. As you might imagine with a book by this title there is a bold use of color. The style is modern, but will probably stand the test of time. I like the way the book is sectioned into chapters that fit a particular mood you might want to create (e.g. colors for fantasy). Also, there are general decorating tips scattered throughout the book.

Bonus:
The color choice quiz. Listed from A-Z all the emotions/moods you could ask for. You choose which emotions/moods you want to promote in a room. Then, you look at the color choice key to see which color matches those emotions/moods.

Minuses:
After buying the book and looking at it more carefully, I realized something...it has some of the same pictures as a book which I also own titled Color Healing Home by Katherine Sorrell. For example, check out pg. 27 of Color Healing and pg.63 of Color Therapy.

How to differentiate between the two: Color Therapy focuses more on how to promote moods. It lists moods and tells you what colors enhance that mood. Color Healing Home gives you more choices of color hue. They have a page for each hue and then tell you what moods each of these hues promote. You say tomatoe and I say tomato. I decided to keep both books, but I am a color junkie.

Recommendation:
What makes Color Therapy standout is the color choice quiz. If that is something that interests you, I would recommend this book. Otherwise, it is a coin toss between Color Therapy and Color Healing, and other books with bold uses of color.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, September 19, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Color Therapy at Home: Real-Life Solutions for Adding Color to Your Life (Hardcover)

I had hoped for more. The title sounded so intriguing. But what I got was nothing new. I have other decorating books (and magazine articles) that cover the same ground. Tips such as using your wardrobe as a guide to colors you want to live with are old clichés and don't always apply. (I wear only neutrals yet have a colorful house.)