DECORATION OF ROOMS.
When light falls upon any opaque surface,
some of it is reflected or diffused, but some of it is absorbed and lost
so far as illumination is concerned. Light which is thrown off from a
body determines the color of the body and the shade. In a red body
practically all the light is absorbed excepting a small part of the red.
In order to illuminate rooms in a satisfactory manner, it is desirable
that the walls shall not absorb a large part of the light. There are
two advantages: First, the smaller area of prisms needed; and second, the
reduction of shadows; for it is not to be forgotten that illumination
derived from many different directions is much more valuable and pleasing
to the eye than the same amount of illumination from only one or two
directions.
Colors giving the most agreeable results shade
from a light cream to a soft yellow. As the clear white light of the
prisms is tempered and warmed by the reflection of these tones, the
quality of sunlight is thereby more nearly obtained. Light tones of
red, orange, tan and green are to be preferred to the cooler blues for
the same reason.
THE TABLE OF
PRISM AREAS has been made out on the
assumption that the walls of the room are very light in color. In
another place is given a sample set of colors and a table which shows
the percentage of light absorbed by each color, and also for each color
a correcting factor by which the areas given in the Table of Prism
Areas should be multiplied, if a room is to be decorated in the
corresponding color.
Window Shades.
The prisms which are designed to illuminate
a room take their light from the sky. Inasmuch as the sky is not always
of the same brightness, and since the prisms are calculated to given
sufficient light under ordinary conditions, it very frequently happens,
especially in a southern exposure, that the light obtained in the middle
of the day is entirely too bright for the convenience of the tenant. In
order to reduce the light thus obtained under these circumstances,
ordinary white Holland shades should always be provided, which may be
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