7 Feng Shui Tips to Spruce Up Your Outside For Summer

It’s Spring! Time to spruce up the outside of your apartment/house with easy Feng Shui to attract harmony and happiness.

If this is the first time you’ve heard about Feng Shui; it is the Chinese art and science of balancing life energies to attract and keep happiness, love, wealth, etc. Feng Shui can become very complicated and confusing but it doesn’t have to be. So much of it is just common sense and easy.

(To read more about Feng Shui, check out some of these sites: Fengshui-tips, Feng Shui Diana, Feng Shui Store or run a search on Feng Shui)

So, here are 7 easy Feng Shui tips to balance your outside:

1. Trim any bushes or shrubs around your house that obstruct your windows. These can be blocking not only light coming into the house or room but good opportunities and health. Besides, being trimmed with adequate air-flow keeps your bushes/shrubs healthier.

 

2. Avoid having prickly cacti in front of your house because they produce negative chi/energy. For those of you in the desert regions, accompany those cacti with flowering bushes or plants to soften the sharpness.

3. Garages, at most houses, are catch-alls for everything from garden tools, lawn chairs, old car parts, etc. But clutter makes the energy stagnant, so the first thing to do is clean out and organize the garage. Put the kids to work, then reward them with a trip to the ice cream stand 🙂

4. Now paint the inside of the garage a bright, inviting color to welcome you every time you come home. You could also hang cheery posters or the kid’s artwork on the walls and make sure there is plenty of lighting in the garage. Don’t forget the floor, it should be kept swept as well as any floors inside your home.

5. If you live in a condo/apartment you can attract healthy chi energy by placing flowering plants, wind chimes and a bird feeder on your patio or balcony. Your outdoor space need not be acres to be effective. Just remember to water them daily because potted plants dry out very quickly.

6. Paint the door leading into your house through the garage the same color as the front door so you feel welcomed which ever door you use to enter your house. If you have a colorful floor mat or hanging decoration at the front door, repeat the items on the other door.

7. The picturesque Victorian cottage overrun by ivy may be romantic in literature but is not good Feng Shui. Having your house overrun by vines symbolizes something eating away at your life. Remove the ivy or keep it under control to improve the chi energy.

You’ll find that most of these easy Feng Shui tips are also common sense if you think about how you feel in different circumstances. For instance, in the photo above, which home looks more inviting: the ivy overgrown one or one of the two beside it with unobstructed windows and cheery, flowering plants?

Have you ever been some place where you felt edgy and uncomfortable? Think about what was around you and you’ll probably find either dark lighting, clutter or messiness or maybe the atmosphere was stagnant due to negative and unhappy people. Even in your own home there is probably a room(s) where you feel most relaxed and happy. Take a look around that room. What is the color scheme? How is the lighting? Is it cluttered and overcrowded with large furniture?

Tell me about a place that made you feel uncomfortable or your favorite room in your house.

Source: Feng Shui Quick Guide for Home and Office by Carol M. Olmstead (available on Amazon.com)