Feng Shui Tips For Your Home

You may think of feng shui as an outdated practice that wouldn’t impact your home’s layout or interior design. But, before you throw the ancient system completely out the window, consider that many common building practices and interior design trends actually align with feng shui elements and practices!

What is Feng Shui Decorating?

Feng shui translates to “wind and water” and it’s a practice that helps people align their energies with their surroundings.The goal of feng shui is to increase the flow of Chi through your home. Chi is positive energy that helps to create a welcoming environment that puts you and your home’s guests at ease – who doesn’t want to feel that when they walk in the door after a long day?

Feng Shui Elements

Additionally, if you want to add additional feng shui elements to a room to help promote a particular feeling within the space, try to include these items:

• Earth elements help a space feel grounded and balanced, helping to nourish those within it. Earth elements can be included in a room by adding earth tones into furnishings and decorating with natural elements from the earth such as pottery and crystals.

• Wood helps to promote creativity and growth – perfect for a home office or hobby room. To include this element in your home, incorporate wood furniture, live (or fake) plants, or natural wooden décor elements.

• Fire stimulates creativity, passion and success. To add fire elements to a room, you can paint walls in “fire” colors, add a candle, or decorate with triangular and star shaped items.

• Water helps to bring freeness and inspiration to a room. To promote this element, add wavy or free-form features, mirrors, and actual water through contained fountains or an aquarium.

• Metal promotes clarity and logic and can be brought into a home through any type of metal décor and the color grey.

According to HGTV, these Feng Shui elements may help shift the feeling in a particular room, setting a different mood to make the room become more comfortable.

Feng Shui House Design Tips

Increasing the flow of Chi in your home takes just a few simple updates – similar to advice that any home designer would give. You don’t need to become a feng shui master or hire a consultant, especially if you are just beginning to learn about feng shui. Many tips can be done by simply considering the current layout of your rooms and making slight changes that can be done at minimal, or no, cost.

• Clear clutter from your home. Regular de-cluttering and cleanings help to keep energy flowing through your home as well as helps to keep you from feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary items.

• Welcome in natural light and plant life. Large windows and indoor greenery bring the outside in, creating a feeling of your space being light, airy and refreshed.

• Create unobstructed pathways through your home. A goal of both feng shui and interior designers alike is to create open layouts in your home. This helps you, your guests, and your Chi to all flow easily from room to room.

An open floor plan can help to promote both the flow of Chi as well as the flow of people through your home. Having an open floor plan allows for both to move unhindered and peacefully through your space.

Additional tips for a good feng shui house design include:

• Paying particular attention to the feng shui “trinity”, or the most important rooms to promote a positive vibe: your kitchen, bedroom and living room.

• Trying not to have your front and back door align with no furniture in between – this could allow positive energy to flow out without it having a chance to flow through your home.

• Separating bathrooms from your kitchen space.

• Designing a welcoming entryway to set the mood of your home as you enter.

Feng Shui Kitchen Tips

While the kitchen shouldn’t be the first room you enter when you walk in your front door, the room is important to setting the mood of your house – it is the heart of the home after all! Like all rooms, aim to keep clutter and appliances to a minimum to help create a feeling of peace and positivity. Add flowers or fresh fruit to tables or islands and allow as much natural light in as possible.

And, keeping in line with well-designed kitchens, the best flow of a kitchen layout is to have your oven, refrigerator and sink in a triangular layout. It’s not only a good feng shui kitchen tip – it’s one that helps to make your kitchen functional for all the chefs in your household.

Feng Shui Tips for Bedrooms

The goal of feng shui in a bedroom is to promote harmony, balance, connection, and calm. Everything done to decorate or change the layout in your bedroom should be done with that in mind.
 

Feng Shui Bed Placement 

The best feng shui bedroom tips include what the perfect bed placement is:

• Having your bed easily approachable from both sides.

• Placing matching side tables on each side of your bed for balance.

• Avoiding placing the foot of your bed directly in line with the door.

• Placing your bed somewhere you can view the entire room, and door, when sitting in it.

• Adding a solid headboard to your bed to promote good sleep.

Feng Shui Bedroom Decoration

Décor in a bedroom should focus on the feeling you want out of your bedroom, which is often connection and relaxation. Some Feng Shui Bedroom Tips to promote these feeling via décor include:

• Painting walls a neutral, relaxing color.

• Adding art that reflects what you want out of life and your room (think about imagery that evokes relaxation, positive relationships and self-fulfillment).

• Keeping electronics hidden in cabinets and at least two-feet away from the bed for better sleep.

Feng Shui Living Room Tips

Your living room will likely be one of the most frequented rooms by both your family and visitors. Therefore, it’s essential your living room layout is best suited to welcome people in and foster comfort, connection and conversation. It should be no surprise at this point when we mention that it’s best to follow basic design principles when placing furniture in your living room. Ultimately, when designing your living room layout, you should pay particular attention to centering furniture around a key focal point (often a fireplace or television) and fostering areas where conversation feels natural, placing chairs within comfortable distances of each other and providing adequate walkways in main traffic areas.

In addition to focusing on furniture arrangements, it’s important to add layers of light within your living room. Start with welcoming in as much natural light as possible by ensuring window coverings can be moved aside, then add more lighting options with ceiling fixtures, standing lamps, table lamps and candles. Adding mirrored objects also helps to amplify the light in your home. It may seem like a lot at first, but having different levels of lighting allows you to tailor the mood in your living room at any time.

Do you follow house design styles that align with feng shui? Tell us below if you will be adding any of these feng shui house design tips into your home.