I'm often asked how decorating and feng shui are related to each other. When I was younger, I used to launch into an energetic spiel about how Feng Shui was this ancient Chinese art of placement and balancing energy flows in the environment. Nowadays, I pause and give a cryptic statement that sends people into states of stunned silence and awe =)

Decorating and feng shui have everything to do with the other. Feng shui is the ancient Chinese art of placement and organization. A lot of people dismiss feng shui as mystic new-age mumbo-jumbo, but nothing could be further from the truth. Businessmen, multinational corporations and governments take feng shui very seriously, and pay exorbitant fees to have consultants look over their building or office plans (the Australian city of Canberra is laid out according to the feng shui bagua). Luckily for you, feng shui is really a simple and straightforward discipline once all the layers of lore and mysticism have been peeled away. Many interior designers practice feng shui - some even without knowing it. You see, decorating and feng shui are intertwined: if decorating is the art of making spaces look good, feng shui is the art of making spaces feel good. It's about creating an aesthetic that is welcoming to everyone, which is why decorating and feng shui are closely related.

You can find out more about Feng Shui and Decorating here

So how does one start decorating and feng shui -ing at the same time? If you're looking to decorate a new office or house, then you're in luck! Grab a copy of your building plans, a trusty bagua printout, and start mapping how items should be around the office or home (for brevity, I'll assume here that we're talking about a home). If you're decorating and feng shui -ing your existing home, then try to locate a copy of your building plans, or else draw up a rough sketch of your place of residence, and again, use the bagua to locate the auspicious areas on your home for optimal placement.

As you can see, decorating and feng shui are complementary and work well together. I'd like to comment briefly on feng shui colors however, as this particular aspect of feng shui is very much visual, and often the cause of distress and confusion amongst interior decorators. Feng shui colors all have a traditional meaning, dependent on their position on the yin-yang spectrum that feng shui uses. It's not so important what specific colors are used, more which colors are appropriate to you. You see, feng shui colors (and to some extent decorating and feng shui) are really culturally specific - some colors are ‘good' in a western household, whilst being ‘bad' in an eastern household. Look to find out what works in your cultural background, and apply that. Good luck decorating and feng shui -ing!

Click here for more information on applying feng shui to decorating!