Adding custom bookcases to a room can be part of the original room construction finish carpentry plan or done later as a remodel or add on.  Not only do custom bookcases look great and add a focal point to a room they can also optimize your space.

 

Research shows that the color red makes us more cautious and attentive to details, while blue makes us more creative and receptive to new ideas.

Scientists at the University of British Columbia studied more than 600 people as they performed various tasks, usually on a computer. Sometimes the screen's background color was red, sometimes it was blue.

The experiments showed that with the red background, people did as much as 31 percent better at tasks like proofreading or solving anagrams, which require attention to detail. But for creative tasks, like designing a child's toy, a blue background improved performance.

"We associate red with danger and mistakes," says Ravi Mehta, the lead author of the study, which was published online by the journal Science. "So what happens is this leads to avoidance motivation. People try to avoid mistakes and danger. That makes them focus on details."

Blue, on the other hand, encourages an "approach motivation," Mehta says. People relax, becoming more open to new ideas and creative solutions to problems.

Mehta says the new study has implications for marketers.

In one test, people responded to advertising copy for two fictional brands of toothpaste. The first brand was promoted as a way to avoid risk by preventing cavities. The second emphasized the promise of whiter teeth.

People taking the test read the advertising copy against a background that was either red, blue or white.

With red, Mehta says, "significantly more people choose the brand which was good on cavity prevention." With blue, he says, they preferred teeth whitening. And on a white background, neither product had an advantage.

The study explains why previous research has produced conflicting results about how red and blue affect thinking, Mehta says. Either color can provide an advantage, he says, but only if it's matched to the right kind of task.

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