Hi & welcome back! It may seem like there’s been little to no movement on my One Room Challenge space but trust me there’s lots going on behind the scenes. Planning, shopping, planning, planning & planning.
Because of the multiple uses for The Teacher’s Lounge, and the significance of them, I knew from the start that I would use the principles of Feng Shui & Pher Ankh. Both require a lot of attention to detail, which we’re definitely used to as designers & decorators. But the I have to take it up several notches when I’m applying them to someone’s home.
Wanna catch up on how this all began?
Week 1 - The Teacher's Lounge Week 2 - One Small Room, 3 BIG Functions Week 3 - BTS... shopping, shopping, planning, & shopping.
DIY No-Sew Upholstery & the BIG Reveal – ORC Spring 2020 Week 8
Slow Progress While We Play The Waiting Game – ORC Spring 2020 Week 7
Since we’re talking about it, I thought it would be fun to share my process of using Feng Shui to any given space, room, or home. (For now, I won’t focus on Pher Ankh quite yet – it definitely deserves it’s own separate post.)
Using Feng Shui Basics
TO INCREASE POSITIVITY & PROSPERITY IN A MULTIPURPOSE SPACE
The Teacher’s Lounge is a 107 square foot space that needs to serve 3 purposes – a combination Prayer Room/Library/Office. In that order. And the office space needs to take a backseat. This makes things a little more challenging to implement.
First things first…
In any room, the 1st order of business to assess the space itself. How much to you have (focus on the positive – how much vs how little). For a multifuntional space, figure out how it can be “divided” – there’s always a way.
The most important step in using feng shui in any home, room, or space is finding your direction.
Yes literally.
- What direction do the windows & doors face
- What are the directions of the quadrants or the room
- What is the area/direction of the room or space in context of the whole home
All these directions play a role in how you decorate the space when you’re using feng shui.
I used to carry around a Bagua in my work bag, but I finally stepped into the 21st century & got an app for that! 😁 I use Lucky Directions.
This app makes applying feng shui fun & easy, even if you’ve never done it before. If you’re a feng shui expert – which I am NOT – and you have all the details in your head, them at the very least it makes it easy to find your direction. This app give you details on what each direction means, how to enhance it & more – it’s like a feng shui cheat sheet!
It can even be personalized, which I love since I use it in my own home too.
{If you’re interested in another app, you can find loads of bagua maps online.}
In week 2 I shared the vision for The Teacher’s Lounge. Before I put that together I prepped by taking measurements as always, deciding what items needed to stay in the room, figuring out how to divide the space & finding the directions.
Here is what that looks like…
These are the basic FS directions just to demonstrate a point… the 2nd & 3rd most important principles of feng shui & of interior design as a whole.
The 2nd principle…
It’s as important as the 1st…
Last but not least…
Decorating doesn’t have to be so literal or so serious. It should be fun & spark joy NOT anxiety or stress.
Feng shui is no different. As you can see from my floor plan, the footprint of the Teacher’s Lounge is not ideal for feng shui.
The room is in the perfect position in the home because it crosses the career & collaborative sections of the Bagua. Narrowing down to the room itself, there are areas that are dead on perfect…
The North quadrant is perfect for the office area in the North quadrant. In this case we need to office to be out of the way so I’m removing the closet doors to pick up a little square footage & tuck the office over in that space. So that works out really well.
Other areas are not as straight forward. For example… the most important use of this room is as her spiritual space. I normally would have positioned the prayer alter in the NE but that’s adjacent to the career space & not the best spot to relax, read, mediate, pray.
So that area will be in the West where it will be more open & prominent. We’ll use other elements to reinforce that area like color & mirrors to reflect back onto the NE. The 2nd principle helps with this too. Bring in items you love, that speak to your soul – that is what really transforms a space.
Those are just a few examples of what needed to be worked out in The Teacher’s Lounge. Feng shui is a great tool that can really help bring positivity, prosperity, & enhance spirituality among other thing in any space in your home. It just takes a little time & a whole lotta planning, but it’s also really fun & worth the effort for sure!
Thanks for reading & following along this journey. Let me know if there’s anything specific you’d like to see – next week should be interesting as deliveries start rolling in & paint starts rolling on… hopefully!
And don’t forget to go check out what the rest of the guest participants are doing this week for the One Room Challenge!
