The Host
More chairs than she strictly needs, the good lamp on, and nobody leaves when they said they would. Fire is the south and the top of summer. In small amounts it warms a room; everywhere at once it is a great deal to live inside.
What balances it
Water checks fire. One deep blue thing, a dark bowl or a navy chair, keeps a warm room from running hot.
Bedroom
Fire in a bedroom is a small fire. The palette is built for evening light, which is what a bedroom mostly has, so the work is keeping the strongest reds off the surfaces you meet flat-on in the morning.
- Walls
- Terracotta or a clay red, one or two steps duller than the chip suggests. Saturated red on four walls is a room that keeps you faintly alert.
- Bedding
- Rust, brick, or plain white. Garnet is a cushion rather than a duvet.
- Lamps
- Amber glass or a warm shade at bedside height. The whole palette depends on being lit from low down.
- Metal
- Brass or unlacquered copper on the handles and the lamp base.
Light
Two lamps rather than one, both below shoulder height when you are sitting up in bed.
Where it goes wrong
Overhead light undoes this palette. A warm red room under a ceiling fitting goes brown and slightly grubby. If the ceiling fitting is all there is, put it on a dimmer and add one lamp before you buy anything else.
Living room
The palette for the room nobody leaves. Warmth reads as an invitation, and the arrangement carries as much of it as the colour: chairs that face each other rather than facing a screen.
- Seating
- Rust or brick on the largest piece. Velvet holds this colour better than flat cotton, because the pile gives you two tones of it at once.
- Cushions
- Garnet, the deepest of the four, in small amounts. It is punctuation.
- Amber
- Glass, a lampshade, a bowl. Amber is the one that carries light through it rather than sitting on the surface.
- Floor
- Something warm and already worn. A red room on a cold grey floor pulls in two directions.
Light
Three sources at three heights, all warm. Fire is the phase of gathering, and people gather in pools of light rather than under one.
Where it goes wrong
Count the chairs against the people who come. A room with more seats than it ever fills reads as waiting, and the answer is a smaller circle rather than more furniture.