With all the colors in the world, it's hard to know exactly which one to use when painting your house. Those of you determined to fairly represent each hue might set out to paint one room red, one orange, one yellow, one green, one blue, one indigo, and one violet. But, for everyone else, painting a room has less to do with equal opportunity decorating and more to do with personal taste.

Still, colors have their limits and certain ones are better at doing certain things. The following is a list of tips describing what each color has the potential to do when it finds itself up against a wall.

White: Painting a room white will make the room look bigger and cleaner (until your three year old decides to smear a mural of ketchup on the back wall). White is an ideal color when you are looking to add a lot of different hues: white, like black, goes with almost anything. Painting with white can give rooms a pure and bright look, while using that white to accentuate other colors. But, be careful: using too much white can make a room too bright, and make it hard to look at. If people routinely run from your room yelling, "My eyes, my eyes," chances are you've overdone it.

Black: Like white, black is an ideal color when you want to mix and match shades. Though black has the potential to make a room look too dark or too small, it also has a solid conventional appeal. A black wall, like a black piece of clothing, captures a sensuous, secretive, and intelligent look. Appearing more intellectual and sophisticated than all the other colors, you will be much more likely to catch your black wall reading the short stories of Rudyard Kipling than your white one.

Orange: Depending on the brightness, the color orange can be a hue that demands notice - like a shade perpetually screaming "Look at me!" It can also be welcoming or it can be a soothing earth tone. Because of this versatility, orange is a popular color in decorating. A room used for socializing can benefit from the use of bright (but not too bright) orange and a room used for relaxing can benefit from a darker orange. But orange, like all colors, has its limits: you have to be careful of the colors you mix and match. Orange with black might come across as too Halloween-ish, orange with pink might remind people of sherbet, and orange with blue might deem you - among your neighbors - a die hard Denver Bronco fan.