A friend recommended a 5-day short seminar on Feng Shui to me. I’ve dabbled in Feng Shui a few times, doing an analysis on each of our houses to determine if I need to add in some Feng Shui enhancements or cures. This course focused on using the Bagua Map.
Simplistically, the Bagua Map (see below) splits your space into 9 squares, each one representing a life area. In each space there is set of colors, shapes, and elements that should be present for good Feng Shui (elements being wood, water, fire, metal, and earth). You can bring in the actual element/color/shape with furnishings or pictures to represent those elements. You can also nourish one element with another – water nourishes wood, wood nourishes fire, etc. There are also other enhancements to bring positive energy to that life domain. Here’s a link to one of the better enhancements information sites.
One of the other specifics in the Bagua Map approach includes eliminating clutter, getting rid of anything broken or unusable, and only keeping things with positive energy. A bit like the Marie Kondo approach to de-cluttering by asking “does it bring you joy?” this approach also asked, “is it necessary?” and “are you just tolerating it?” These questions gave me different ways of approaching the magnitude of stuff we still seem to have to downsize.
As we continue to set up our new Florida home, I will be referring back to some of the Feng Shui design principles as we place our artwork and other “stuff”. We have lots of positives already:
- Our kitchen area with its tall, dark wood cabinets is in the Core Health & Family / Nourishment space, which has wood as its element and tall rectangles as its shape.
- Our master suite is in the Love & Marriage area where using accessories in pairs is one of the enhancements recommended. We have pairs of things coming in the move – picture of a pair of doves, pairs of lights. I’ve also added lots of candles in this space (fire element), and am considering changing some to pink (versus white and green candles now).
- Our guest room is in the Travel & Helpful People space. As this room will also be multi-use as my “office” or quiet reading room, I’ll need to think about designing the room with mini Bagua map review as well.
- I had already placed a triangular wrought-iron plant stand in the Fame & Reputation area of our new home. Triangles are the shape here! I need to decide how to bring in fire element though, or wood (wood nourishes fire). Perhaps place a wood bowl in the plant stand?
One fun thing I’m now planning based on this review is finding a beautiful purple bowl to fill with bamboo (or crystals) and place in the “money corner”. The Prosperity & Wealth area has purple, red, and green as colors and wood as the element. As soon as I can, I’m off on an art & craft show exploration for that bowl!
This dabbling in Feng Shui again was fun and gave me some additional approaches for de-cluttering and downsizing. I’ve done a lot, but there is still much more to do – we are moving from a 2100 sq. ft. house with attic and basement to a 1900 sq. ft. house, no attic and no basement. The loss of attic (where we both have our office spaces) and basement (where we have over 15 shelves of stuff) is where it’s really impacting us! Yes, this move has been on the plans for a long time, but the downsizing is still a big work-in-progress.
Have you ever done a Feng Shui analysis on your space? What was the most interesting thing you learned about your space?
Picture Credit: Pixabay
retirementtransition 
Pat, I think any arrangement that makes you feel calm and happy at home is a plus. If you can keep it low maintenance, that’s even better. Good luck with your downsizing!
Thank you for linking up with #weekendcoffeeshare. if you could mention the link up name somewhere in your post, I’d greatly appreciate it.
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Hi Pat, I believe in creating comfort, functionality, and beauty throughout my home, regardless of size. I find it interesting that for health and well-being you are to avoid water and wood. Most spas I have visited have a waterfall and/or bamboo decorations in the waiting room. I tend to practice most of the other eight squares – to a degree. Best of luck with creating a space that makes you smile.
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Suzanne, your comment about spas makes me wonder if they design them with any FengShui perspective. I am not sure WHY the elements/enhancements are where they are, I’d need to research more. I’m just summarizing multiple maps I looked at. Maybe not the best research this time, sorry!
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I have never understood why basement and usable attic space are not part of square footage when people live in those spaces as well. We have 1650 sf on ground level. That’s it. Nothing else.
So was your 1900sf home really over 3000sf?
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Elle, Interesting perspective, and probably accurate! Our new space is definitely 1900… no attic, no basement. And I’ll keep attempting to downsize things… with hubby being a quasi-hoarder, it’s always a challenge.
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I’m all for anything that brings in harmony – and prosperity. I’ve dabbled a tad with it in the past – I recall putting the map over our old house in Sydney and getting stick into my husband (who could be a hoarder if he lived with anyone other than me) because the part of our house that was about prosperity and wealth was where he kept all the old relics he had from an aunt of his – horse brasses and other bits and pieces that had come over from England and would never see the light of day. Interestingly my home office is in the career zone of our house now.
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Jo, Love that your home office is in career zone. Now, the suggestion would be to do the map on that room itself. Where is your desk in the space? Where are your files? What’s in the creativity section?
Also, as a “power position”, the desk should not face the door and your back should be on a solid wall. If you have insights doing this, please let me know. My new “office” will be no desk and is a shared space – with the guest bed! Not a lot to work with there, but I tend to write (my only ‘work’ these days) where-ever I take my laptop!
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I think anything that can bring beauty, harmony, and calm to a home is a plus. Getting rid of clutter and broken items is a great first step towards a peaceful, restorative living space. Happy downsizing!
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Janis, I need nudges in getting rid of stuff all the time… and hubby does as well. He is a “garbage picker”…. yeah, brings home things from the daily dog walk. Sometimes things are good, but too often it’s “I can fix this”!
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Fun. Still don’t understand how you apply to an office cube. 9 areas in a small space seems difficult. Not sure how to apply on 2 story house instead of one floor. Hmm guest bathroom is in the Knowledge & Self. Appropriate?? Maybe I’d need better reading materials in it. Our 2 computer stations are in the Love & Marriage. Fits because there are 2 computers?? Kitchen is in Creativity which certainly applies!
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From my reading, not sure how you’d deal with a cube either, but there was a short bit on applying it to your desk. Like where to put the picture of your family (relationship space), where not to put the stack of unpaid bills (wealth corner). The two stories you do independently. I recall years ago in another house, a bathroom was both in the career area and over the front door… a double bad whammy. The “cure” was to paint the ceiling of the space below (the foyer) green…which i had actually done before I read about that “cure”! It was weird. I have a good book on Feng Shui that I read with each new space (doing the full analysis), but this class was all about the Bagua Map…kinda new (and easy) way to look at it for me. Not sure what to do about your bathroom in Knowledge/Self though!
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Hello Pat! This is very interesting! Have a wonderful week. Diane
Le dim. 17 janv. 2021 à 19:43, retirementtransition a écrit :
> patwdoyle11 posted: ” A friend recommended a 5-day short seminar on Feng > Shui to me. I’ve dabbled in Feng Shui a few times, doing an analysis on > each of our houses to determine if I need to add in some Feng Shui > enhancements or cures. This course focused on using ” >
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Diane, lovely to hear from you! When it warms up, maybe I will see you at beach yoga.
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Hi Pat – I’ve never seriously gotten into Feng Shui – but I do like the uncluttered and flowing effect that its users create. I’m a big fan of minimalism and keeping things light and clean looking so a lot of my house would probably tick the boxes – and the rest I wouldn’t want to change so I don’t read too much or I’d be shifting furniture around like a maniac! Good luck with the downsize and sorting!
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Leanne, I’m not moving furniture around either. But it was interesting to think about where I can place other things, as we move stuff in. And this helps with nudging hubby again on de-cluttering … yes, he reads my blog!
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I have always been interested in Feng Shui. My new apartment has huge mirrors in the career area, and I got my dream job shortly after moving here!
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Bethany – how cool is that! Those synchronicities are the things that make me just wonder. I’m having fun with it, but then I hear about those situations and wonder if there is more here.
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