A living room that adheres to the principles of feng shui will feel fresh and clean and have a happy energy. Feng shui is an involved philosophy that can transform your home. Learn how to use glass and mirrors to create feng shui in your living room.
Understanding Feng Shui Basics
Feng Shui depends a lot on the five elements — fire, water, wood, metal, and earth. These elements are represented by corresponding décor items. For example, mirrors and glass represent the water element. When you're decorating your home, you want to add the five elements into the creative cycle:
- Earth fosters metal.
- Metal holds water.
- Water nurtures wood.
- Wood feeds fire.
- Fire creates earth
The goal is to arrange the elements within this cycle in the appropriate area of your home.
The location of any room affects how you implement the creative cycle. You'll have to determine your living room's location and define it according to the feng shui energy map, called the Bagua:
- North is connected to career
- Northeast is connected to spiritual growth.
- East is connected to health.
- Southeast is connected to money.
- South is connected to fame.
- Southwest is connected to love and marriage.
- West is connected to creativity.
- Northwest is connected to helpful people.
Water, as represented by glass and mirrors, helps promote flow. It also gives you a space to regenerate yourself.
Placing Mirrors in the Living Room
In any décor plan, a mirror casts a reflection, be it of light or another décor element. In feng shui, the mirror also doubles up on certain energy. Therefore, you want to be careful with your placement of the mirrors.
First of all, place a mirror so that it reflects light, both natural and artificial. Such placement promotes an airy, open ambience in your living room. Particular to the living room, though, you don't want to place the mirror so that it casts your own reflection —according to feng shui principles, the mirror should be purely for decorative purposes.
Concerning actual placement, the best directions for the mirror are the east, southeast, and north. So start by placing your mirror in one of these directions. Place the wood element to the right of the mirror and a metal element to the left.
Since the mirror reflects feng shui energy as well as light and décor elements, be aware of what you hang across from the mirror. Different colors and elements represent different areas of your life:
- Wealth is represented by wood, blue, purple, and red.
- Fame is represented by fire and the color red.
- Love and marriage are represented by earth, red, pink, and white.
- Health and family are represented by wood and green.
- Spiritual growth is represented by earth, yellow, orange and brown.
- Creativity is represented by metal and white.
- Helpful people and travel are represented by metal, white, gray, and black.
- Career is represented by water and the color black.
- Knowledge is represented by earth, black, blue, and green.
If you want to cultivate one of these areas of your life, then hang the corresponding color or element so that it's reflected in the mirror.
Utilizing Windows in the Living Room
When it comes to adhering to feng shui principles, you have more leeway with placing mirrors than you do with placing windows. However, you can use what you've got to promote the creative cycle. Windows are different from mirrors in that they allow light through rather than reflecting it. While the glass in a window promotes the creative cycle, windows also allow energy to flow through. Therefore, a window located in the southeast might actually be allowing wealth energy to flow out of your living room. You'll want to bolster the energy by surrounding the window with the wood element and the target colors.
Promote the feng shui water element in your living room by utilizing existing windows and properly adding mirrors. Visit
Monterey Glass Specialists Inc.
for all of your mirror and glass needs.
