Home And Family

Archive for the ‘Feng Shui’ Category

Feng Shui (pronounced “fong shway”) principles for staging homes and offices is growing ever-more popular. The overall goal of Feng Shui is for one to live in harmony with one’s environment and encourage “positive energy”. The way to this nirvana is apparently to arrange one’s living situation and entire life to fall in with the vagaries of “chi”.

Some of the advice that Feng Shui gives the home seller makes sense. It’s a good idea to clear out your clutter and air out the home to provide clean, fresh air. ”Green” or “eco-friendly” cleaning products can be another positive step – they often smell better and are better for you and the environment. Balancing the colors in the home can also be useful if you find a room is too “one color”.

However, what Feng Shui devotees attribute to positive energy may just be the result of clearing out clutter, cleaning your home until it sparkles and putting some touch of greenery here and there – things that most home stagers would advise be done anyway. It doesn’t take an esoteric expert to surmise that a home that is easy to move around in and that is clean will be more attractive to buyers.

Feng Shui has a darker side as well, with people claiming to be “Feng Shui experts” charging hundreds to thousands of dollars for consultations that end up costing more money as they recommend people get rid of “bad feng shui” by doing expensive renovations or walking away from a home sale because the “chi” is all wrong. This can end up costing people major amounts of cash for something that is as simple as “clean and de-clutter”.

Some websites that encourage or inform people about becoming Feng Shui consultants suggest prices ranging from $500 for a single consultation to $300/hr. They suggest that Feng Shui consultants can earn $20,000 to $250,000. While this may be competitive in the arena of home design and staging, to hand this to someone who has studied a book on Feng Shui seems ludicrous. But people do it every day.

The important thing to remember about Feng Shui and any other home staging practice that claims to have a key to “energy”, “chi” or anything else that cannot be quantified is that if you wouldn’t spend the same amount of money for a conventional home stager, don’t spend it for someone who promises you good luck out of the ether. Many Feng Shui principles are good ideas, but it doesn’t make them worth more than principles marketed as just good common sense.

Thanks to a generous grant by our Fairy Godmother, Billie Cox-Glimpse and the Helen P. Glimpse Foundation, we have launched the first Fairy Girl’s Club at The Children’s Home in Tampa, Florida.

The Children’s Home is a residential treatment facility caring for children victimized by abuse, neglect, and/or abandonment which has severely impacted their outlook and behavior. Tragically, the 10 wonderful girls who have committed to our 10 week program have learned early on that life is not a fairy tale.

On our first meeting we asked the group what fairies mean to them individually; One of the girls sagely responded “Fairies are about hope.” That’s one of the beautiful gifts of a fairy-inspired life!

One of the main activities is to create Fairy Fan Clubs to show their appreciation for 3 or 4 of their favorite fairies; After reviewing more than a dozen of our fairy role models, the girls narrowed down the choices to these fairies for this particular 10 week program:

Isabella, the Rainbow Fairy of Creativity and New Beginnings
Jae-Lin, the Feng Shui Fairy of Balance and Harmony
Xiomara, the courageous and powerful Spirit of the Rainforest

The word “intuition” means to be tutored from within. As the girls participate in a variety of fun, creative and challenging activities and crafts honoring their “inner fairy,” she becomes an internal source of guidance and inspiration. We are on our third weekly session now and will keep you posted on our club’s progress.

We will launch a website for the Club soon. You can keep up to date by checking Dr. Rose’s Twitter page, http://twitter.com/fairyqueen8.

If you want to do the interior of your room, there are a few main guidelines upon which to work. These are the guidelines letting you carry out the process the right way. It is good to follow the instructions, because they let you embellish the interiors in a way that just feels right. So, it is essential even for people owning great taste that they should have some essential idea about interior design.

A true reflection for your style and class is smartly reflected by your home. A well decorated and well furnished home speaks out class where as standard is something for which furniture takes up the major responsibility. Living Room Furniture New York has come up as a major provider of high quality living room furniture that enlightens the sense of your style and grandeur in one’s interior.
Home Interior is a part of the personal style and artistic inclination of life stylists. Home designs are too many and they are beautiful and self expressive. While decorating a home, space planning, lighting, furniture and windows are important. There are 4 different types of design patterns that life stylists, architects and interior designers follow. No matter what you call it, this type of style is based upon the use of natural materials such as logs and woods, twigs, animal hides and antlers, rocks, metals, etc. To begin with you will want to figure out how you can add these natural materials to your home.

Feng Shui started from Chinese; they believe that colors, furniture, and the way of decoration can affect you in different ways. When you design your interior you should consider the principles of Feng Shui to give your home balance look. Feng Shui deals in colors, flows, and placing an object on different places. There are many Feng Shui experts available in market who gives you consultancy based on Feng Shui. But there are some basic principles which you can follow easily without any consultation of Feng Shui expert. Following are some basic ideas for interior decoration which you should follow throughout designing your home.

Every room in your home has furniture that it must have in order to be livable, and those are the items you should pick. Family room furniture would not work well in your formal living room, for example. An important pre-shopping tip is to measure every dimension at least twice and sketch a diagram that shows the locations of the room’s windows and doors.

Even today, water fountains are included in interior and exterior decor and enhance the beauty of any place where they are used. There is nothing that quite compares to the soothing, peaceful feeling that water fountains can bring to your home. Inviting the soft sound of gently flowing water into a room is like bringing the outdoors in and providing a way for you to escape the tension and relax.

Water has always been an important resource for mankind. Other than its potable & soluble usages, it’s also used for adornment these days in the form of fountains. Historians point out that water fountains were initiated from the ancient Middle Eastern region, particularly from Egypt, where gardens were decorated with water fountains. Fountains were also found in Roman and Persian cultures. The Mughals who ruled India, had built many architectural wonders, like Taj Mahal, and their gardens were always decorated with lush trees and fountains. Mughal women tended to stay indoors most of the day and hence these gardens and fountains were a source of relaxation and recreation for them. Fountains have always been an integral part of architecture in the far Eastern countries too like China, Japan etc. where water is considered as a form of energy in Feng shui. In many countries, fountains have been the center of social life. People used to gather around them, while collecting water for drinking, cooking and bathing and they have also been a graceful mark of romance & friendship.

At times, you must have noticed a marvelous water fountain in a public space somewhere; a fountain so pleasing to look at, that you wish you could have taken it home. It might have been a stunning work of art, a poignant memorial, or just a symbol of peace and quiet in a busy world. Besides their calming effect, water fountains can add beauty, class and elegance to any room in your home. They provide an atmosphere of elegance to any place they are installed in. There are different types of water fountains available such as outdoor water fountains, garden water fountains, indoor water fountains and other types of fountains. The different styles of outdoor water fountains available these days can be customized to suit any environment where these fountains are installed.