Feng Shui Your Bedroom!

About three months ago I moved into a new apartment. I was faced with the dilemma of how to arrange my sort-of small room with the massive amounts of shit I own, and work around the fact that I don’t have a closet and that there are two doors to my bedroom. Eventually I figured it out to some degree, and things were working well, but something just didn’t feel right.

I shuffled some things around, stubbed a few toes, got yelled at by the old man downstairs for dropping things too much, and then I gave up. Then I thought, what’s the deal with this feng shui business? Is it real? How do I do it? What makes a room feng shui? So off to Google I went, and here’s what I found. There were about 9 million sites, some intersected, others were the complete opposite of each other, it turned into a bit of a headache, but I settled on what sounded the most reputable and also what I gathered from each site to be the majority consensus on what is proper feng shui technique.

This is a map of a successfully feng shui-ed room. Basically you divide your room, whatever it may be, into nine equal quadrants and each quadrant represents a different aspect, illustrated above. Along with each aspect are coordinating colors that you should try to have in each section. Wherever the door to your room is would be considered the ”front”.

Here’s a list of example items you’d want for each section:
Knowledge: Bookcase, books, tools for self-development.
Career: Mirrors or water-related items. Images to support your career goals.
Helpful People/Travel: Pictures of your helpers.
Family/Health: Family photos, heirlooms, plants.
Creativity/Children: Art supplies, artwork, computer.
Wealth: Money, jewelry, fish, fountains, anything red, purple or gold.
Fame/Reputation: Candles, awards, plants, anything red, orange or purple.
Relationships/Romance: Round or oval mirrors, anything pink, pictures of loved ones, paired objects (like two candlesticks or two crystals).
Now here’s where things get tricky.

One of the biggest rules concerns the bed. The bed should be in direct sight of the door, but not directly in front of the door. The Chinese call this the death position because when you die, you can simply be carried out the door, nice right? So ideally you want your bed to be on the wall opposite the door, and you should be able to see the door without straining yourself to do so. This is so that you are always aware of who is leaving or entering. Along with bed placement, your bed should be against a solid wall and should have space on either side of it so energy can ‘’flow’’ freely. Ideally it’s good to be symmetrical so that your bed is balanced, i.e. a night stand on either side.

Shall we see this implemented?

When I went to try this I realized my room was about half-way there without me even knowing it. So I did some rearranging of the bookcases and night stands, and here we are.

Let’s start at the front left, Knowledge.

As you can clearly see, we’ve got a bookcase, some records, and as for tools for ”self-cultivation”, my singing Michael Jackson Christmas ornament is on my corkboard, along with a nicely illustrated image of beards that my old roommate drew for me. All of the items here just happen to be the appropriate colors, this is also where I stash my obnoxiously large scarf collection.

Onto Career:

I don’t have room for much in this section, but on the wall I have a collection of show cards from past BFA/MFA Thesis shows, so I guess that’s relevant. The walls in my apartment are plaster so every day I get to play this fun game where I see how many times I’ll have to re-stick each card. You’d think they’d make a plaster-friendly sticky tack. Nope.

Helpful People & Travel

It’s a little boring, but I’ve got some pictures of family and friends, and also all of the business cards I’ve collected. That large cat birthday card meows happy birthday when you pull on its chin. Many thanks to my lovely sister for that one…

Health & Family

My closet. Symbolic? Perhaps. But there’s no where else in the room that I could put it.

Now we’d be at the center, which should remain as open as possible. Onto Children/Creativity.

Aside from how stupid it is for me to still have a window fan, we’ve got some artwork, a framed picture of Kevin Arnold, a cat sculpture from Kenya, and this is mostly where my computer lives. Along with my dinner, tonight it was home fries (yum). I like the idea that my creative section is also where my window is. See ya later, didn’t need you anyways.

Wealth!

My dirty laundry. Upon further review, my layout may need some work.

Anyway, the show must go on. Now we’re onto Fame & Reputation.

This may be the most successful quadrant of my room aside from the Knowledge one. Check out all the goods! MJ Bobblehead, peacock feathers I stole from my step-brother’s wedding, mad candles. My bed also sneaks into this section a little it.

Finally, Relationships/Romance.

Also lacking a bit. Fitting. I used to have a fancy rhinestone mirror over there but I kept knocking it down so I decided to forego all romantic prospects to avoid seven years of bad luck. Also notice the plaster issue again, those damn photos will not stay up no matter what I do.

So that’s that, here’s a final shot at the entrance to my sort of feng shui room.

I’d also like to add that I didn’t have to do once ounce of cleaning before taking these photos.

Anyway, was that helpful? Do you care? I don’t know, but I spent like a week figuring this crap out so I figured I might as well share it. And I will say that I do feel very comfortable and peaceful in this room. After a day/night of dealing with morons or being wasted, it’s nice to come back to a cozy little abode and pass out. It’s hard to navigate certain necessities like a dresser or a closet, but I think as long as you’re associating things in your mind with what they should represent, it all works out. Or something.

It’s all about energy, man.

This may have been a bad thing for me to do because I already had a hard enough time getting out of bed in the morning. Now that my room is so nice it’s damn near impossible for me to get up. I’m pretty sure I drive my roommate crazy because I’m a serial snoozer and I deliberately set my alarm at least 30 minutes early so I can have the satisfaction of hitting that button every ten minutes.

Oh well, at least there’s harmony up in here.