Obi Lourdes’s Reviews > The Interior Design Handbook: Furnish, Decorate, and Style Your Space > Status Update

In terms of lighting, a good start is to plan on every room having at least 5 to 7 lighting points, though some interior designers recommend between seven and nine.

The simplest color to start with is one of the three main colors of the natural world: green, blue, or brown. There is a useful rule of thumb that states that almost anything will go with these colors, because no colors look ugly against the forest, sky, and earth.

Ask yourself whether there are things around the house that annoy you in a visual sense. You’ll be amazed at how wonderful it feels once you get rid of them. It may be the ugly vase that you find irritating every time you see it, but you keep it only so you won’t upset the person who gave it to you. If you think negative thoughts about an object every time you see it, then it’s time to sell it or give it away.

When choosing the colors for a room, a better balance is achieved if you follow the way nature uses colors—heavier shades at the bottom and lighter shades higher up. The base should have dark colors (the earth), and the colors become lighter toward the ceiling (the sky).