Karen Rauch Carter | Category Archive | Furniture Position in Room

Archive | Furniture Position in Room RSS feed for this section

Feng Shui Tips for the Bedroom for Health and Relationship Improvements

by Karen on September 28, 2011 in 5 elements, De-Cluttering, Furniture Position in Room, Health, Relationships and Love, The Five Elements

On average, one third of your life is spent in your bedroom. I think it is practically impossible to “waste money” on creating the perfect bedroom as it is your most impacting room of your house! Here are my tips for bedrooms if your love life seems stale or is non-existent, or your health could use some improvement, or you are looking for a new or different outlook on life:

#1 Remove anything that does not support love/passion and health/rest. If your bedroom looks more like an office or multi-purpose room, your environment is working against you. If you want to go the extra mile with feng shui, try to get a good balance of the five elements in there as well.

#2 If you are looking for a major change, then stretch yourself and make major decor changes within the bedroom. In other words, “Don’t buy the same old comfort zone stuff that will get you the same old love and health-life situations!”

#3 Buy a wooden bed if you have the choice. Metal beds can conduct electrical fields which can be a health concern. Avoid having anything plugged-in near your bed, and especially no electrical blankets (even if they are plugged in but not turned on they can be harmful!), heating pads, or massage pads.

#4 Check the lighting level to see if it is not too harsh (yang) or too dim (yin). Listen for distracting sounds and try to alleviate or remove.

#5 Avoid large living plants or water fountains in the bedroom.

#6 Avoid large mirrors in the room. You should not be able to see yourself reflected in any mirror when in your bed.

#7 Avoid sharp metal within the bedroom (knives, axes, swords, guns, scissors, etc.) Sharp metal near you in bed usually results in “being cut” in life – as in surgeries.

#8 Create a headboard for the bed and place it against the most solid wall in the room – cure poison arrows or “bed in line with doorway” lines by hanging a crystal between the bed and the negative item.

Don’t settle for a “6″ Bedroom when you can have a 10!!!!!

Read full story • Comments { 7 }

How Fast Can Feng Shui Work?

by Karen on July 15, 2011 in Blog, Career and Life Path, Fame and Reputation, Furniture Position in Room, General

I’ve been fast and furiously feng shuiing my way through New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut this week and just have to share some of the great stories that I’ve got! On Tuesday, I went to three clients in a row in NYC….all single gals in one bedroom apartments. I took along Katie, one of the gals that graduated from my online feng shui training program who wanted to shadow me as well. The first gal was an aspiring actor who has been studying the craft and trying to make connections. She doesn’t have an agent or anything like that yet, but she wanted to get started with the actual money-making portion of her new-found career. I’d say her main feng shui issue was the fact that her desk was very thin, and faced a wall. Now if this is your big money-making desk, I’m telling you all, you’ve GOT TO get some space in front of your face and NOT shove the desk against the wall! So we moved it along with the entire living room arrangement and guess what? As we were wrapping up the phone rang and it was a casting director who wanted her to come over IN TWO HOURS to audition for a commercial. Can feng shui work fast? Heck yea.

More on the second and third client soon…

Read full story • Comments { 16 }

What Happens When Feng Shui Creates Paranoia – Q and A

by Karen on July 5, 2011 in Creativity and Children, Furniture Position in Room, Health, Help for Parents

Question: Hi. I have the book, and have been using it extensively over the past few months with definite results. One thing I’ve learned is; not to do too much, too fast-because if something goes wrong, you’re not sure what you did.

Last month I was rearranging my teenaged daughter’ s room one morning. I had JUST taken a bulletin board off the wall and removed all of the items, with the intention of painting the border, weeding out some of the seemingly superfluous items and rehanging it (perhaps in a different spot).

Among the items were; a photo of her at age ten driving an old pickup truck around a pasture with my husband in the passenger’s seat, a copy of her driver’s safety handbook, and a photo of my dad, a Chicago policeman known for his extreme proficiency behind the wheel. The phone rang. It was my daughter, tearfully telling me she had just been in a fender-bender on her way to school (first one in 2 years of driving)!! I painted the board, replaced all of the items and put it RIGHT back where it was. OKAY, I BELIEVE !!

Now-I have a question; Now that she’s heading for college, she’s been collecting new items for her apartment, but there are also multiple items she want to take with her from her bedroom here at home. What do we do? Should she take them? Should I try to find exact duplicates of the items she wants, so she has them at both locations? I haven’t been able to find an answer to this one anywhere. Thanks- DJ Kelly Memphis TN

Answer:

OK DJ, now take a breath…

The answer to this questions is simply this. The place that you associate as your main home will be the place that impacts you the most. I am assuming by saying this that you are sleeping there and spending a significant amount of time there. So, if she moves and takes her stuff out of that bedroom and creates a new nest somewhere else, her world should NOT crash around her. You do not need to recreate a fake, still, museum-like room to keep her chi up. I would guess that the type of space I just described might do the opposite.

The good news is, if she is “very clean” with her chi, which, if your tweaking her space brought those immediate “negative” results, then she has the capacity to get good results just as quickly. All she needs to do is stay positive with her thoughts and keep her space as revved up as it seems to be now….make sense?

I have seen people take feng shui to the extreme and get all paranoid about everything, and it usually does not serve them well. My advice would be to think of it like this…if thinking about the immediate repercussions that what I describe is paranoid way keeps you ever-mindful about the placement of the stuff in your surroundings to the point where you sleep great at night, are present in teh moment of life, and your world is working great for you, then go full-on that way of thinking. If it seems to stop you in your tracks, make you start to doubt or question everything you do or everything you move or change in your environment, then drop it, and take a more laid back observer approach. By that I mean, be in a type of constant “experimental” state of mind. Make a change with specific intentions, assume the best outcome, and see what shows up…then lather, rinse and repeat…almost like you are in a state of wonder at how the world works – IN A GOOD WAY.

Hope that helps!

Read full story • Comments { 3 }

The Wrong Color for a Part of the Bagua – Q and A

by Karen on June 27, 2011 in 5 elements, Creativity and Children, Family and Friends, Furniture Position in Room, General

It all depends on what is around it!

Question: I just read your book and am now rethinking my decor ideas. I was just getting ready to hang a red curtain in my guest bathroom that falls in the Creativity and Children Gua, and white blinds in a window in the Family Gua window. What would you say to this?

Answer: If you only knew how many questions I get like this! The answer is: it depends. Color is one of the MANY items you can use to cure a space, that is true. But unless EVERY SINGLE thing in the room is that same color (I hope not!) then you’ve got some aspects of other elements nearby as well. There is also the “cover your butt” cure in my book that you might want to review. It states that if you don’t know if you’ve got too much of one element or not enough of another, then put some of every element there with good intentions and it will balance itself out! As a matter of fact, I would say to consider the shape of the item first, then it’s construction material, and then its color to decide what element it is if you are looking at these items from a 5 element perspective.

So, can your particular bathroom handle a red curtain – maybe! It depends. Sometimes red can be used in the Fame and Reputation Gua of THAT ROOM and there you go! Or perhaps everything is all dark blue or some other dark color (which would be considered water element with a downward flow), then perhaps a little upward moving fire element in the red curtain would be helpful.. One would really have to know the context of the particular item to have an opinion.

So, there you have it. Depending on the context, that one red curtain could be bad, could be good, could be neutral…it all depends. That’s why I do live and telephone consultations (where people send me pictures and floor plans ) – it’s because I need to see what’s around each item and how it all works together.

Nothing is inherently good or bad feng shui. It just depends on where it is and what’s around it.

Read full story • Comments { 0 }

Frustrating Living Quarters and What to do About it – Feng Shui Q and A

by Karen on March 4, 2011 in De-Cluttering, Furniture Position in Room, Just for Fun, Outdoor Feng Shui

QUESTION: What do you do with a house “love/hate situation?” We love our home based upon location and look, but we’re always frustrated that it doesn’t feel like it supports us in all we do. Even though it is a nice sized house, it seems the whole family is always on top of each other in a couple of rooms. We’re pretty much clutter-free but still feel squeezed in. Am I missing something?

ANSWER:First of all, remember that many feng shui principles are based upon observation. If you notice an unwanted life situation consistently coupled with particular living pattern or arrangement, you can start to deduce its relevance and figure our how that arrangement could be modified to achieve a more harmonious condition.

This is what I have noticed with similar life situations before: they have entire ROOMS as clutter. This is my definition of a room that is clutter: A room that is set up as a formal presentation that is never used, extremely rarely used, or designed only to be used during holidays. I think of these rooms as GIANT, full-scale curio cabinets with life-size furniture inside, but the only life it sees is the person who dusts and cleans it. If you’ve got space like this in your house, you are essentially allowing a “dead space” in your home and in your life. I would rather see a person re-arranging for the holidays to accommodate a crowd than see them live in half of their home because the other half is for those rare “special occasions.” I say, let’s make your everyday life special! Re-claim a room! I give you permission to toss that formal dining room furniture and replace it with furniture or other equipment that suits your everyday life! And I invite you to sell off your formal living room furniture and create a space that nurtures your soul NOW! I ask you to consider taking that empty-nest bedroom and turning it into a room that meets your needs today!

So many people are ‘hovering” around in their houses – without one single spot designed to nurture and support what they do in their everyday lives. They need quiet/meditation space, studio space, reading space, and family gathering space, party space and what they have is dead and sleepy space filled with a lot of pretty but uncomfortable and uninviting furniture.

It is OK not to have formal spaces if you never or rarely use them. Remember the de-cluttering phrases “Use it or lose it?” And using it once a year is hardly passing the test.

It is OK not to have formal spaces even though everyone else does. Architects and builders guess at what kind of living spaces you need when they design and build. If it is not what you need, then by all means change it. I give you permission! Forget what others think. This is YOUR home. And I would like to see you love it and use it fully and totally. A “looking good,” false facade in your home only keeps you inauthentic with yourself.

If you do have these spots in your house and can’t give them up quite yet, then rely on the traditional cures to help enliven them: light, sound, living things, moving objects…..at least get ch’i-attracting things in there until you make up your mind.. Heck, maybe that will be enough to start getting people interested in using it!

And don’t forget to do the same with outdoor living spaces. If you are all hovering under a teeny porch roof when you need a big outdoor party space, blow it out and get a landscape architect to help you design an outdoor room that works FOR YOU!

Read full story • Comments { 2 }

A Living Room Makeover – Good Feng Shui and Design

by Karen on November 29, 2010 in Blog, Furniture Position in Room

Sometimes, it’s the simplest things that make the biggest difference in a home….

I had a recent client who had a very traditional home where the living room furniture was set up just as you would have expected it; couch facing the fireplace, rectangular rug aligning with the rectangular room, etc. Nothing wrong with that from a design standpoint, but from a feng shui point of view, it didn’t create “an invitation” for people or energy to enter. It also happened to put a window at the back of the couch and main chair.

So, as a solution to solve both problems, we moved everything – rug and all – to be at a 45 degree angle in the room. Here are the before and after photos:

view into living room - "before"

View into Living Room - "After"

Can you see how much more inviting it is? It’s like the furniture isn’t turning its back on the guests now. It also made the most of the wall space – putting the main chair and couch backs against walls instead of the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Do you have a blah, boring, or uninviting space? Try this simple “45 degree twist” on feng shui!

Read full story • Comments { 0 }