This page tries to convey some of the feelings and moods influenced by the choice of a purple room. First of all, a warning, having a purple room can become addictive. Side effects include spending hours hunting in cheap markets for anything purple, accumulating loads of junk just because it has a small bit of purple on it and severe mood swings.

I decided to write this article because of the effect my own purple room had on me. I decided that people need to be warned of some of the pitfalls of the "purple room syndrome" (not yet recognised by the world health authority but then again, neither was dyslexia or seasonal affective disorder at one time).

It all started about 3 years ago when I moved to Bournemouth, England, near the beach. I had a lounge and 2 bedrooms to decorate and I thought "why not do them completely differently, so I can change room to suit my mood?" I decided to keep the lounge bright and cheerful for everyday use, the spare bedroom changed its decor whenever I got bored and the main bedroom was converted into what my friends described as a "purple shrine".

I was only renting the flat so I couldn't really paint the walls purple so I bought loads of gorgeous purple wrapping paper and lined the walls with it (purple material would be better). I covered the lampshade in purple material (a good idea if you like to burn your house to the ground) and hung assorted purple, black and blue material and netting up. I covered a table and some piles of cardboard boxes in purple and shiny blue/silver material in the bay window, and covered the tops with assorted candles, lamp burners, purple glass thingies, hand painted lanterns (thanks Kim) and a purple lava lamp. As time progressed these tops became a display of interesting purple things, culminating in anything I could find or my friends could donate that was purple. This included a purple sock (thanks Caroline), a purple bra (thanks Kim) and purple condoms (thanks *** !)

To add the finishing touches I found a gorgeous purplely patterned bedspread for my queen sized bed that occupied most of the room and loosely arranged purple bubblewrap around the entire floorspace of the room. This was laid down about 4 layers thick and swirled around a lot to create about 6 inches to a foot deep of bubblewrap (great for friends to all sleep on as there was only room for 5 in the bed!).

The main 2 problems with this layout were that the makeshift curtains wouldn't really open properly so the room was always dark and spooky (not helped by the dim purple light) and it was a nightmare to clean.

Initially this seemed really cool, and many an interesting night was had by all in this "purple palace". I started going out with a lovely girl and everything was most fluffy. Then the relationship went bad and although it was me who wanted to split up I still felt really bad about the whole thing and about how she must have felt. I found purple was the ideal colour when you're depressed, especially with spooky Goth music playing. The problem was that having a purple room with hardly any daylight is not the sort of place where you're ever going to cheer up. A downward spiral of depression was entered, my friends started hating me for being so upset and eventually the only way out was to leave Bournemouth and start again somewhere else. How much of this was due to "purple room syndrome" I'm not sure but the power of purple certainly played a part.

I'm not trying to put anyone off having a purple room, but just be warned if you're an emotionally unstable person. I'm still glad I had my purple room and I miss it a lot, so good luck to anyone out there who wants to do a spot of redecorating. Please email me with any experiences of your purple rooms

Purple Paul