Decorating with Feng Shui
Feng Shui in home decorating, touches on something deeper. It's the harmonious feel of a space. It's that sometimes unseen, yet always felt thing, the Feng Shui of it all! It's not just about making your home pretty and that's what makes Mimic House a bit different! Yes, your home should be your sanctuary, a safe place to unwind and relax after a long day, but here can be so much more! Did you know it's a known Feng Shui principle that if your space is cluttered and unorganized, it will amplify your stress levels? This can generate a host of negative issues throughout your life. But worry not, Feng Shui is on your side, to bring back balance, energy and even manifestation!
It’s vitally important that you incorporate more harmonious energy back into your living spaces, now more than ever with Feng Shui for home decorating!
What is Feng Shui?
The ancient Chinese practice of Feng Shui (pronounced Fung Shway) is vast and complex! Human health and its many facets have been studied, dating back more than 3,000 years. Look deeper and you will see the threads of quantum physics! This fascinating knowledge base looks to both balance and inspires change, taking into account personality archetypes, astronomy, metaphysics, social compatibility, the nourishing natural world, and the list goes on! It's important to realize as we go through our everyday lives that we are living on a planet in constant motion and ever-changing. The years pass, the phases of the moon, the pull of the tide - gravity and the magnetic fields that surround, perhaps, even the celestial occurrences - must all have effects on our lives. And so, there is a much bigger picture of health and balance here.
What type of Feng Shui is the right one?
There are several different schools of thought on Feng Shui. I will touch on the traditional and the modern, westernized versions. Simply put, traditional practice for the home focuses on accuracy with compass readings. The location of a home's front door to determine mapping out a plan for proper energy flow with nature and human harmony is paramount. Whereas, modernized Feng Shui has infused a straight-forward, simplified approach with components of Buddhism, and utilizes a map that is always oriented the same way, oriented with a north facing front entry.
Interestingly, they both are rooted with similarities. Also, it doesn't take long to see that there is value in all forms. So, best to learn and practice the form that feels right for you. Many will say to pick one and that is up to you. Personally, I use the traditional form as my base, yet am a life-long learner and compile strength in both! You will see that I may express an affinity for both at times, bringing you wisdom that I feel should be shared with best intentions at heart! Remember, this is your journey and you must grow in your own way!
Feng Shui With Home Decorating:
In the home it involves arranging home furnishings in a way to promote the flow of "Chi," or life energy. This energy flows within us and all around, a magnetic field that needs to circulate freely. Therefore, Feng Shui practitioners believe that improper floorplans, furniture placement, or even home accents can lead to poor energy flow, creating a host of physical, spiritual and emotional consequences. Yet, many believe tapping into this ancient art can not only alleviate negative consequences, but bring wonders into fruition. Feng shui teaches proper alignment for home furnishings and purposely placed elements that can bring balance and contentment. You can actually feel the shift in your spaces. I liken it to a sense of relief that just feels right! It is believed that adding key elements in favor of our geographical position, personal attributes, and creating a stronger connectedness to the natural world, must all be in-tune with one another. If done properly the rewards can be many! It's essentially a great balancing act that we can utilize within our homes, to tap into gaining the things we want more of in our lives. If you’re like many and have issues like: poor sleep, lack of enthusiasm in the kitchen, or your home office doesn't feel productive, consider incorporating some Feng Shui techniques.
How Feng Shui Brings Balance:
Feng Shui by nature is intuitive and should be customized for every person. It also grows with you, such as the ways you might like change in your life today, may be very different tomorrow! Utilize these ideas as a starting point, and implement them in ways that make sense to you and how you want to use your spaces within! Your home furnishings, layout and how you decorate your living spaces have a huge effect on overall health. Your floorplan may not be able to be changed, yet you can adjust many aspects to enhance well-being. Many things can be attributed to how we balance it all. Consider, life is ever-changing and so are our needs and desires. Feng Shui is a great tool to use to help with balancing that ebb and flow within.
Getting Started with the Elements
Feng Shui is translated as wind and water, being the most powerful of all the natural elements. It utilizes five natural elements for positive energy flow: water, earth, wood, fire, and metal. It also guides where they best reside within the home, determined by the use of a Bagua, or an energy map. The Bagua helps to pinpoint what elements should be placed in which parts of the home for the desired outcome. With classical Feng Shui, using the Bagua, elements can be added with imagery, shape, symbolically, with form, and with color.
“Human health and its many facets have been studied, dating back more than 3,000 years. Look deeper and you will see the threads of quantum physics!”
The Right Mindset
It's important to have an open mind and to look deeper into these energies. Hence, color itself is the flow of energy from the sun, broken into its wavelengths of light, we can see as colors. Moreover, the more you analyze the powers of energy, the more you will come to appreciate Feng Shui. Avoid the urge to dispel the things you cannot always plainly see, it’s time to dig deeper into truer realities of life. Home decorating shouldn't just be pretty, it should harness a sacred space to grow and feel balance. And if you're just plain bored, spice things up and bring in a fresh, fun & quirky home décor item to recharge!
Have you ever walked into a room and felt like a weight had been lifted, as a sigh of relief came over you?
Perhaps, color had a part in it, and you didn’t even realize it!
Get started, as you add these 5 key elements:
Earth, Metal, Water, Wood & Fire
A clearer picture of each element is a great place to start, followed by how to implement them into your home!
Earth
Feel more grounded with the Earth element. This Feng Shui element adds a supported feeling, as if standing on solid ground, it aids in protection. Earth elements are found in more neutral tones of brown, such as beige and terracotta. They all exude a sandy tone. Look for neutral rugs, focal walls to splash some color on, or throw blankets and decorative pillows to accent this color. Earth elements coordinate with a brown, orange and yellow color palette nicely. Décor items to easily add to your home leather couches, warm hues in natural artwork, stone cutting boards in your kitchen, or serving trays. In addition, mineral rocks, such as quartz crystals and beautiful earthy toned pottery are a beautiful accent to any room!
Elemental Cures:
Always use your intuition and keep in mind your emotional state. If a room is overly oriented with the Earth Element, you may notice a tendency for worry. Anxiety can be due to an overabundance of earthy elements. This one, I work on often! This can be soothed by adding more of the Wood Element. These elemental cures can help. To intensify add more earth elements, nourish with fire, or subdue with wood.
Water
Water is perhaps one of the most powerful elements on earth. The emotional, spiritual and physical pull we feel is no wonder. Water brings a connectedness to something greater. This powerful element is incredibly healing, many find intuitive answers to problems, or a feeling of inner renewal alongside the waters edge. It is symbolic of wealth and contentment. Water elements are best in areas of the home that have high traffic, an energized space. Bring this element into your home, add photographs or paintings of water, consider one from our art studio at Society6 . Look for meandering patterns, mirrors, or glass accents. Tabletop fountains, as well as fish tanks can be used in entryways and in the hub of the home. An office space can benefit from this energy as well. Add colors with dark blues and blacks. A fun use of this element can be used as a dark, bold accent wall. Try painting a dark, moody black or blue color or using a wallpaper! Alternatively, if you’re looking for more of a subtle approach, art prints, with muted tones can have a calmer presence which will allow the opportunity to introduce another element as a focal point. A dark or light focal wall can really make for dramatic effect. Notice, how the lighter room lifts the room upward, making it look higher. I feel energized, just looking at it! While the dark focal wall room, has a cozier, deeper den like feel. Though it isn't gloomy, or too intrusive because of the balancing white ceiling and fireplace, as well as, nicely placed elements, such as green plants, wide framed matted art prints, warm leather and textiles.
Elemental Cures:
Remember, because water is so powerful, it has the ability to energize too much, therefore a bedroom is generally a poor place to have water features because it can create troubled sleep patterns. To intensify add more water elements, nourish with metal, or subdue with earth.
Wood
Wood is known to attract vitality, creativity, good health and symbolizes growth. It is well suited for children’s rooms. This element also draws good fortune, symbolic through greens, teals and browns, it coordinates with many colors, especially blues and neutral tones. Sturdy wood coffee tables and side tables are great additional choices for living rooms and bedrooms. Using color, try adding a textural green velvet piece, such as a side chair and pair it with a light blue accent pillow. On a budget, you could easily add fresh, air purifying plants to your space, or botanical printed curtains. Feeling like a DIY project? Paint an old dresser your favorite shade of green!
Elemental Cures:
To intensify the wood element, add more wood elements, nourish with water, or subdue with metal.
Metal
Metal can help add structure to overly calm spaces, it promotes inner emotions of discipline and the need for efficiency. If your easily distracted, this element can give you clarity. Consider, using whites, grey, and metallics for color. Easily adding in these neutrals in rugs, walls or accessories are simple. Placing a metal tray or bowl to contain clutter makes for simplicity. Other ideas to consider: metal pendant lamps, metallic vases and furniture with metal accents, such as metal table legs. Metal is a supportive element for a productive office space, this element is nicely suited in areas that need better organization, or the drive to succeed professionally.
Elemental Cures:
To intensify metal, add more metal elements, nourish with earth, or subdue with fire.
Fire
The fire element is probably as you guessed it, colors indicative of fiery flames. Fire symbolizes enthusiasm and passion, it can also stimulate creativity. Use colors of red, pink, orange, yellow and purple. It can be used in lighting, candles, incense, and lanterns, to name a few. To combat loneliness, or to spark energy, try using fire elements in the room. Try using the color to symbolically emulate a fiery tone, such as, a vase with a warm hue. It can be a stunning way to changeout floral designs and arrangements all year long! Fun, bright accent pillows and accessories to pop the color throughout your space is another option. Need a bold space? Go for a fierce red accent wall color!
Elemental Cures:
To intensify add more fire elements, nourish with wood, or subdue with water.
How to Feng Shui Your Home
(The traditional way) in 5 Steps:
There's a quality to classical Feng Shui that has a fascinating living approach to it, that grows along with each person. Specifically, their place in life, in terms of what they want to add, diminish or maintain. Once, the home is mapped out properly, it gives insight to the areas of your home and how they are connected to the areas of your life.
Step 1
Choose if you would like to go room by room, or your entire home. Draw your floor plan of the room, or entire home and include fixed fixtures, such as stove, toilets, sinks, etc..
Step 2
Gather supplies & record your front door location. You will need:
Compass (a phone app compass is fine to use)
Protractor
Geographical readings ("degrees chart," provided below)
Floor plan
Pencil & ruler
The goal is to map out each room's geographical location, starting with the entryway, front door of your home, make sure to face in an outward direction, always with every reading for each room.
Step 3
Take readings of each room, facing outward from entry doorways. Stand in the doorway of each room within the home, take several readings for each room to determine accuracy. Make sure to face outward for each. Write each down, they will be plotted onto your floorplan, shortly.
Step 4
After you have found the location of the front door, and made a list of other room readings, the center point of the home is next. Place the protractor on the center point of home floor plan, and notice the front door reading you took in step 2, align the protractor up with that reading for the front door. Look to your starting point , North: 337.5-22.5 degrees and draw a line from the center point out and label it north, east, west, etc.. Continue with all the other reading you took in the same way, marking your line out from center for each direction.
Step 5
Plotting all the rooms with the Bagua. Similarly, plot all your prior room coordinates by drawing a line from center out, aligning your readings and labeling each one. Make sure to notice that the Bagua breaks your living space up into 9 corresponding areas of your home, including the center area (Yin and Yang). This is generally, the gathering hub of the home a place to enhance good fortune and well-being; that center area is where the protractor should be placed. Once the Bagua directions are transposed on top of your floor plan. Each area, be it North, Southeast, West, etc. Then, coinciding with the element, color and attributes it will strengthen, balance, or subdue.
The 9 Bagua Areas:
1. North-Career & life path - Water
2. North East-Knowledge, self-cultivation - Earth
3. East-Family & health - Wood
4. South East- Wealth, abundance- Wood
5. South-Fame, reputation - Fire
6. South West-relationships, love - Earth
7. West-Children, creativity - Metal
8. North West-helpful people & travel - Metal
9. Center- Good fortune & well-being
Get Your Very Own Energy Map
I have a simplified Feng Shui Bagua Map, download below!
3 more tips to get you started with good Feng Shui, no matter which style speaks to you!
1. Keep it clutter free
Since, the entryway and living rooms are two of the most used spaces in most homes; and often a first impression, it’s essential to keep it clean and clutter-free. In this day and age, it's easy to accumulate too much “stuff,” and where we place this stuff, often determines how calm or cluttered we can feel emotionally. If we only allow décor in our rooms that serves a purpose and adds value, it can help curb that clutter! An easy way to declutter is to remove all objects from your room and piece- by- piece, add them back in purposefully. Hence, the things that don't have real value, whether useful or sentimental, might need to be let go of.
2. Mirrors add so much-
In a stale feeling, or dark corner, try adding a small mirror to reflect positive energy back into the room. When using mirrors, make sure they reflect an object of beauty, such as a floral arrangement or a favorite painting, not that unsightly laundry basket! Be sure not to add too many mirrors, or in a space that needs a calming effect.
3. Lighten the mood-
Overly dark rooms can create feelings of gloom, so pay attention to lighting when decorating. Natural light is always the preferred, so pull back blinds and curtains daily and let fresh light in. Florescent lights often cause an unpleasant buzz that can trigger headaches for some, so consider soft recessed lighting instead. Provide end tables, or floor lamps that are easily reachable from seated positions to instantly illuminate the space with ease.
