WHY SHOULD I CONSIDER USING FENG SHUI?
Feng Shui includes many principles and suggestions, yet the main point is to create an environment that supports your daily life, health, aspirations or dreams, and lifestyle. Unfortunately the way I was taught Feng Shui nearly 40 years ago, it didn’t make sense to me nor was the essence of it boiled down to the main purpose or reason for doing it.
FUNCTION! BALANCE! ORDER! BEAUTY!
Heavy “weight” of the piano is balanced on the other side of the room with the cabinet – and a triangle with the large, dark coffee table distributes the weight of the pieces around the room.
Feng Shui is common sense. Make your home functional. Create rooms that feel balanced. Clear the clutter. Make it beautiful in your eyes – not your mom’s, neighbor’s, or friend’s eyes!!!
For years in my interior design and Feng Shui classes I told my students that using “Feng Shui” principles and objects is actually the last step.
FUNCTION!
First the home has to be FUNCTIONAL. If I told you to do something within your home, but in doing so it made it difficult to walk through your home or you couldn’t accomplish the necessary tasks within your home, you would be irritated with me. You might even send me “bad vibes” – intentionally or unintentionally. Use your common sense when doing anything in your home.
BALANCE!
Second, we want BALANCE in the home. There are many ways to create balance, especially when we use Feng Shui. But let’s talk about balance through the eyes of interior design.
Look at your room. Do you have all the furniture against one wall? Maybe distribute items around the room. Does one wall hold all the TALL pieces of furniture? Or maybe there are several “heavy” pieces on one wall or one side of the room. Again, move them around. Try to have some tall or big pieces on opposite sides or maybe even placed in a triangle within the room like they are in the picture above.
The same goes for low furniture, dark items, or any items that “command” attention. Balance the room in order to have pieces of furniture placed around the room, not just in one area or side. What about artwork? Is it all on one wall? Try to make arrangements that have about the same visual weight on opposite walls. This also applies to having equal weight on both sides of a piece of furniture.
Order & organization in the entry or mudroom
Have any accent colors distributed around the room. Having all the color just on a sofa or one wall throws the room out-of-balance. We want visual balance in heights, colors, accessories, and style within each room. When we add Feng Shui into the mix, we often will incorporate the Five Elements or Yin/Yang Theory.
ORDER!
Creating ORDER throughout the home brings a sense of peace into the space. CLUTTER is a big issue in many homes. Often it is because the function of the task doesn’t have the proper furniture or layout to complete the task easily. File cabinets, containers, lighting, seating, and other necessary tools are usually missing or not conveniently located to handle the situation.
Setting up a regular time schedule to work on decluttering and organizing is often a tool used to help. I block off the needed time for these tasks on my calendar. When doing the work, I set several short time segments back-to-back instead of one LONG time to accomplish things.
BEAUTY
As the phrase by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford in her 1878 novel, Molly Bawn, states: “BEAUTY is in the eye of the beholder.”
What do you consider beautiful? What style furniture do you like? Is it the comfort factor, sleek lines, or big & masculine? What colors do you like? What colors do you dislike? Do you like lots of objects on shelves and flat surfaces? Or are you a “less is more” kind of person?
This is a discovery process as we are constantly changing and growing. As we mature, are exposed to different cultures and lifestyles, and expand our consciousness in the world around us, our tastes and preferences evolve.
Creating a living room that is functional, beautiful and reflects your style is the goal in Feng Shui.
COMMON SENSE, STYLE, & REFLECTION OF YOU
The challenge with our lifestyle and way of thinking these days is we don’t use common sense. We are bombarded with advertisements and other people’s agendas to the point we often forget common sense. We have become brainwashed into thinking we “need” the latest product or device to make us happy and complete.
What’s your style? Do you even know? Many of the women I have worked with during my career as an interior designer have not a clue what style they like. They see a room display at a store or in a magazine and they try to mimic it in their home… but not quite! The cost, size (of the furniture or the room), color, or material doesn’t work for some reason. Hence, they are forced to change parts of the overall image. Bottomline, it just doesn’t work.
Why do you have the furniture you have in your home? Did you inherit it? Find it at a garage sale? Brought it from your college days? It was in your husband’s friend’s house, he didn’t want it, and told your husband to take it? These are just a few of the hundreds of “mistake” furniture my clients have had in their homes.
Ultimately with your home, using these common sense qualities of interior design – AND FENG SHUI – will improve your life. Yes, Feng Shui is the common sense aspect of interior design.
Make your home a reflection of who you are at your core essence. What are your values? What do you believe? What do you cherish? Where do you want your life journey to take you? How do you see yourself? Does your home reflect that image?
If you follow these principles, you’ll understand why considering and utilizing Feng Shui in your home will make you happier and help you achieve the life you desire.
