Q&A Sunday: Feng Shui and Interior Design

I've been receiving your newsletters and am an interior design student currently and wanting to learn more about feng shui. I'm half Asian and have basic understanding having grown up with the Korean tradition, but I would like to know more about about feng shui that I wish to apply to my career as a sustainable interior designer. Although there is a plethora of books and references out there, I wondered if you might be able to give me your advice on how or where I can go to learn more? I really appreciate any advice you could offer!

Emma B., Sydney, Australia

 

Hi Emma,

Thanks so much for reading my newsletters and for your question. We actually just answered one similar to this a few weeks ago. Here’s a link to it. But i’ll add some more information based on your specific request.

Since you’re half Korean, you may want to reach out to your family members to see if there are any connections to your ancestry there. Korea has their own form of feng shui called Pungsu-jiri. Most cultures have some form of “geomancy” — a way of looking at the environment and our relationship to it. By definition, geomancy is a way of divination through signs from nature, which is essentially how the art of feng shui works. You might have interest in learning more about Korean feng shui.

There are definitely many books out there, and as I’ve mentioned before, because there are so many schools of feng shui, it can be confusing, and the information may be conflicting. If you really want to incorporate this into your career, I suggest you look for a teacher locally. But if you want to just tip your toe in, my top books to recommend are:

Modern Book of Feng Shui - Steven Post

108 Ways to Create Holistic Spaces - Anjie Cho

ALL BTB feng shui books

I, of course, more deeply recommend the BTB Masters program, which currently offers a few online courses and is expanding further, and fengshuistoryboard.com, which is currently online. Each of these programs is taught by BTB feng shui masters, including some of my mentors and fellow feng shui students. 

If you are genuinely interested in incorporating the philosophy of feng shui into your sustainable design, I highly recommend finding a mentor or teacher and practicing hands-on learning and certification, as this will help you bring meaningful adjustments to your design work. Good luck in your studies! 

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Q&A Sunday: A Bathroom in the Fame Area

I really appreciate and enjoy your podcasts, and have found the one on finding a job particularly helpful. I immediately took the "do one good deed a day for 27 days challenge" and am currently on day 24 first time around :) My easy, go-to good deed is removing rubbish at the entryway of my apartment block. 

My question for you is that the "Fame" area in our apartment is the bathroom and I'm wondering what I can do about it. The bathroom door directly faces the front door, and they are maybe four meters apart. The connecting hallway is very narrow so I feel like the energy is probably just shooting from the door straight down the drain. As this bathroom also has no window, I need to air it frequently (after a bath or shower) by leaving the door open. Is there anything I can do? 

Piera, Hamburg, Germany

Hi Piera,

Thank you for listening to the podcast and for your wonderful question!

AND…Kudos to you for taking on the “One good deed a day” adjustment!! Did you make it through to day 27? I’d love to hear more about it. Interestingly, when I thing of the feng shui of removing rubbish from the entryway to your apartment block, I'd guess that if you were doing this for a new job, it would definitely help to open up how many opportunities would come to you. Removing the rubbish would probably weed out the undesirable jobs to make space for something amazing. I’d love to hear more about your experience if you’d like to share!

As for your question: What can be done about your bathroom located in the Fame area of your apartment? Since Fame is related to fire, it’s not the most ideal place for a bathroom because it can put out the passion and power of your reputation and how the world sees you. You also noted that the front door is directly in line with the bathroom door, approximately four meters (13 feet) away, all connected with a narrow hallway. If you could send along a floor plan, it would be helpful in determining just how quickly the qi is moving out towards the back of the home.

My first suggestion would be to place a mirror on the outside of the bathroom door. Second, I would suggest that if you have to keep the bathroom door open, perhaps use a curtain (like bamboo, a light fabric, or even a Japanese noren) to keep the bathroom out of the direct line of sight from the front door. Another option could be to place something nearer to the front door that blocks the view to the toilet. It’s unhealthy in feng shui to have the toilet be the first thing you see when you walk in the home. Again, I suggest you send in your floor plan to see if that’s possible. Either way, I would go with the curtain option as well to help with this situation.

Again, I'm very excited to hear that you are working on the 27-day challenge. I find it to be a very helpful feng shui adjustment and hope it has been effective for you! Your intuition regarding the feng shui of your bathroom is excellent, and I do hope you'll send along a floor plan or schedule a 15-minute consultation call so we can be sure your fame and passion isn't flowing right down the drain!

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Q&A Sunday: Bedroom Colors and the Bagua

I'm confused when it comes to bedroom feng shui. I see a lot of articles on creating a bedroom space that's romantic, with colors of red/pink, etc. But what about the area in which the bedroom is on the bagua map? My bedroom is in the Family area which has different colors and shapes, etc. than the Love & Relationships area. What's the best way to set up a bedroom like this?

Jennifer S., Madison, WI


Hi Jennifer

Thanks for your question! it’s a really good one, and it comes up a lot. Here we’re looking at two different approaches or feng shui techniques. 

First off, when writing a general post on feng shui for a bedroom, I try to make it as crowd friendly as possible. The bedroom can be in any area of the feng shui bagua map, but it’s always a bedroom! So usually I approach it from the knowledge that the bedroom can be in any bagua area, however here are some ways to work with the bedroom in light of what a bedroom is generally used for: sleep, or healing, or in the case that you mentioned, to encourage romance. 

It’s actually a great idea to also approach the bedroom with regard to where it’s located on the feng shui bagua map. You mentioned that your bedroom is in the New Beginnings (Family) area and it’s not in the Relationship area. You can possibly see that with your bedroom in this area, there can be opportunities for energy and growth in your relationships, especially your primary relationship. Your bedroom doesn’t have to be in the Relationship area to use the colors related to the Relationship gua. You can invoke romantic colors in your bedroom (in New Beginnings area) to create and invigorate new relationships. Or you can use the colors of New Beginnings (green) to encourage growth and healing in your personal life. But without talking to you, I can’t tell you what is the “best” way to set up your bedroom. 

This is where a feng shui practitioner can be very helpful. My friend and colleague, Doris Ingber, calls what you’re looking at as “Barnes & Noble Feng Shui”, where you read things here and there and work with things in a very literal way. There’s nothing wrong with this, because it’s a step in the right direction! But a skilled feng shui consultant can help you use the feng shui principles in a more precise and effective way depending on what your needs are. It’s sort of like working with a doctor or looking on WebMD 😃 But if that’s not something you’re interested in, I’d advise you to look at what you want to achieve in your bedroom, and take the advice on the posts that resonate with you.  

We’re also doing a raffle on the podcast in May through June 2017, so be sure to enter and you will have a chance to win a free mini-consultation with me that we’ll share on the podcast. There we could look at your bedroom more closely! Until then, take a peek at some of these bedroom feng shui posts to see what you can glean!

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday".  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers. Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!