You love the guy, his apartment and the park it overlooks, but what faces you, as you enter, walk through the hall, the kitchen, the living room?

Ouch! It blazes like the rocket launch to Mars. It’s a bright red entrance hall leading to a bone white living room with a bright red, brand new sofa.

The obvious solution as any idiot can immediately figure out, is Craig’s list. However, the sofa was a present from his mother who lives ten minutes away by motorcycle, which she drives, wearing her leather jacket and big sunglasses. She is, by the way, very sensitive, cries easily, likes Pinot Grigio in long stemmed glasses, and has occasional bouts of depression. Options narrow.

Clearly, bright red is not your thing unless it’s on your lips or dessert: strawberries and cream at Wimbledon or “New Dawn,” Grandma’s climbing rose over the back porch.

Remember, that mountains are made to climb over.

Accordingly, here are some things to think about, wrapped around the way a room makes you feel when you walk into it. You’re on a limited budget so start by buying unfinished wooden side tables, a coffee table, a bookcase, and an entertainment table for television and hi-fi. Now, we choose some colors.

• Want the room to scream with the sofa blasting out at you. Keep the walls white. Paint all the tables, bookcase, and entertainment center black. Get black metal lamps with red or pink shades. Buy a red and black room sized rug, a few posters in red and black and invite Mum over for a glass of wine. gin.

• Want the room to have a mellow feel with the sofa making a gentle impact? Paint the walls in a dark taupe, or a medium grey. Paint the tables the same color, just one shade darker.

• Want the room to be somber, with the sofa and love seat nestling into the background, paint the walls a shade of medium brown.

Paint the furniture or better yet, buy wood finished in a natural medium brown, or finish it yourself.

• Want the room to be jumping up and down like acrobats flying through the air and the sofa doing somersaults? Paint the walls lipstick pink, orange, purple, or turquoise.

Personally, here’s what I’d do. I’d buy stain and Tung oil and finish the tables, etc., a soft brown. I’d paint the walls in a lighter shade of brown. I’d buy an earth brown carpet or dark finished wood floors. The lamps would be brass with off white shades. Wall decorations would be posters, repeating red shades of brown. Check out reproductions of Monet.

Now, let’s have Mum roar over on her Harley.

Put on some Mozart. Attack the cork on a chilled Pinot Grigio and pour, using your long stemmed glasses. Bring out tortilla chips, your best guacamole, for color contrast, and toast both Mum and the bright red sofa.

More help for decorating problems can be found in Design Challenge articles.

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