Feng Shui Colors: A Room-By-Room Guide

One of the least expensive ways to give your home new life is a fresh coat of paint. Even those who live in apartments can often convince their landlord to let them paint, as long as they return the walls to plain white before they leave. The investment is minimal -- less than $80 buys three gallons of paint, rollers and brushes to do a few rooms.

But what are the best colors to paint using the principles of Feng Shui? It depends on the room. When you select colors for the floor, walls, and ceiling, make sure to employ the Five-Elemental Cycle using three colors. Also, don't think a ceiling has to be white; light beige or even brighter colors that complement the walls add depth and creativity to a room.

Entryway/Foyer - Small entryways are enhanced by lighting and light, bright colors. Off-white and shades of blue, pink or green represent hope and welcome. Green, black or red are auspicious colors for the front door. As with a fence, avoid a white front door. You can learn more about Feng Shui in your front entrance in this article.

Kitchen - The best color for a kitchen is white, the color of purity and cleanliness. White permits the food's true character and colors to show through -- bright reds, greens and yellows on a white pallet. The kitchen's basic element is fire, and metal (represented by white) overcomes fire to better balance the chi.

Avoid black and gray (water element), because it destroys fire, and avoid red, because it will make a kitchen too “hot,” literally and figuratively. A red kitchen may be prone to fires while the cook will be prone to temper flare-ups. Read more about Feng Shui in the kitchen.

Bedroom - The color of your bedroom will depend upon your age, personal goals, and whether your room is the master bedroom or not. Pink is best for a master bedroom, because the marriage position on the bagua is placed between fire (red) and metal (white), and pink is the blending of these two colors. Pink or red sheets and blankets ensure a “fiery” marriage bed.

For single people seeking a mate, pink or peach is an auspicious color for the bedroom.

For anyone else, subdued hues of greens and blues promote rest. You can learn more about how to use Feng Shui in the bedroom in this article.

Children, on the other hand, thrive in rooms of green, which create peaceful calm and serenity while encouraging learning and knowledge. This article talks about Feng Shui in a baby's nursery.

Dining Room - If you have a dining room where you eat and entertain as a family, pinks, greens and blues work best to encourage conversation and stimulate the palate. There's a reason many restaurants have green decor -- it stimulates the appetite. Avoid blacks and whites unless the goal is to lose weight.

Bathroom - The bathroom should be a sanctuary where you go to prepare yourself to face the day or retreat at night to prepare for sleep. The best colors for a bathroom include lighter shades of green, blues, pink, or white. Black or gray, which correspond to the water element, make good accent colors. Or, you can use pastels or white with bright accents to enliven the space. Remember, as one of the first rooms you visit in the morning, the bathroom is one of the three most important areas of the home in Feng Shui.  

Painting your home in pleasant, Feng Shui colors helps balance the chi within yourself, members of your family, and your home.

Feng Shui Your Bedroom to Take Control of Your Life

Once you've found the Central Palace of your home, you should also consider the central line. This is the line that runs through the central palace, dividing your home into the front half and back half. Your main entrance is located in front of the central line. Rooms such as the bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom may be located behind the central line.

Feng Shui Placement of a Master Bedroom
Since the master bedroom is one of the three most important areas of a home in Black Sect Feng Shui, its placement is especially important.

The master bedroom, along with other bedrooms, should reside behind the central line, in order to give its inhabitants greater control of what's going on in the household, as well as in their life. A bedroom behind the central line also offers other benefits, both spiritual and mundane.

A bedroom located behind the central line:

- helps inhabitants sleep better, by separating the yang activities of the outside world with the inner sanctuary (yin qualities) of the master bedroom

- offers more privacy for intimate activities, as well as a sense of privacy and security in the home

- reduces the danger of robbery

- reduces the chances of having difficult or misbehaving children, by putting the head of household more in control of the home and its inhabitants

- gives the master of the house a sense of control, just as a CEO leads a company from behind-the-scenes, with a desk behind his subordinates, and a general observes and controls his army from the rear

Feng Shui Cures for a Master Bedroom in Front of the Central Line
If a master bedroom resides in front of the central line of a house, at least one of the people in the room may not sleep at home very often, and may even have a bed in another location, sometimes implying a marital affair.

Additionally, the “master” of the house may feel more like a servant or doorman. The bedroom's placement may affect the person's sleeping habits, as they will not feel great separation from the yang activities going on outside the home. It could result in feelings of restlessness.

A bedroom forward of the central line puts the people who sleep there in a subservient position, and may result in the room's inhabitants feeling out of control of their own destiny and fortune.

If you cannot move the master bedroom because of the layout of your home, you can position a mirror on the interior wall of the bedroom, facing toward the front of the house, so the image of the bed appears deeper in the home than it really is.

A Second Floor Bedroom
A bedroom on the second floor -- again, as long as it is behind the center line -- is good Feng Shui, unless it feels so far removed from the rest of the home that those who sleep there feel out of control. If an upstairs master bedroom feels far removed from the front entrance of a home, hang a shopkeeper's bell on the front door or on the door frame. It will ring and alert the master of the house to the comings and goings below, resulting in a sense of greater control.

You can read more about how to Feng Shui your bedroom for success, love and more in this article.

Feng Shui Love: Is Clutter Getting In The Way Of Your Sex Life?

Jennifer Parks, Edmonton Journal 

Is your love life a little lacklustre?

There's a definite link between your sex life and your dirty laundry, says a clutter-busting expert.

"An unclear mind and space aren't conducive to good, yummy, relaxed sex," says Janet Mayfield, a feng shui consultant and former Edmontonian.

Feng shui is the ancient Chinese system of rearranging your environment to bring balance into your life.

Take a mental inventory of their bedroom space. How do they feel in it? Is it full of good memories or bad? Have you had more arguments than sex in there? Does the room feel private? Is the bed comfortable? Does the bed have a history before your current partner?

"Opening the windows, washing the bedding and burning a candle or incense will start to make a difference," says Mayfield. "If it feels really awful, empty the room entirely, wash it from top to bottom, and as you put it back together, play some favourite music, laugh, clap, sing or shake bells. It will help to break up any old remaining chi -- energy."

Other tips: Take out pictures of the children and family. Fill it with happy pictures of you and your spouse. Clear up any sign of work. The colours pink, coral and peach are very conducive to romance, so use these colours if you like them.

If you've ever secretly worn red panties under your clothes just to feel sexy, then you can attest to the power of colour to affect your mood.

When it comes to cleaning house, Edmonton marriage counsellor Gary Meiers is no clutter-busting guru, but he says a good sweep under the proverbial carpets can do wonders for your sex life.

Over time, unskilled communication can lead to resentment and kill intimacy, he says.
ot buying into the whole "change your decor, change your life" philosophy?

Then consider this timeless aphorism from an ancient Indian text, The Upanishads:

    * Watch your thoughts; they become words.
    * Watch your words; they become actions.
    * Watch your actions; they become habits.
    * Watch your habits; they become your character.
    * Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

It doesn't take a feng shui leap to see that our inner and outer worlds are intrinsically connected. So, this spring, why not do an internal sweep? Take out the trash in your love life and transform your relationship. After all, no amount of clutter is worth a sexless destiny.

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