INSIDE: A feng shui living room is a place that encourages sharing, cultivates peace, and invites positive vibrations our way. When the living room is designed and decorated in a way that helps generate positive chi, it becomes a harmonious place we can enjoy sharing with others. Let's discover how feng shui principles can transform your living room and your life…

 

The space we live in and our immediate environment are much more than a shelter. It's a personalized space that reflects who we are and it's where we feel most comfortable to unapologetically be ourselves.

According to Nature.com scientific reports, researchers have found that there is a positive correlation between beautiful surroundings and scenery and our mood and contentment.

Today, thanks to modern design approaches and feng shui principles, we can make the most of the space we live in. Feng shui is decades old and is a tried method that can help us elevate the energy in a room, attract abundance, and so much more.

Because the living room is such an important part of every home, both to family and guests, it should be mindfully decorated to attract positive energy and repel negative energy.

With that in mind, we are presenting our feng shui living room tips and tricks to elevate your living space. We've got a lot to share! Let’s get started…

Feng Shui Living Room Do’s & Don’ts

In feng shui, a living room is the place for socializing and gathering. No matter if you are buying or building a new home or are looking to modify and upgrade your existing living space, feng shui can help you create a serene living environment that simply nourishes your soul.

There are many tips you can follow to ensure the accumulation of the good Qi in your living space. Here are some key ones to help you get started…

The Closer to Main Entrance, The Better

In feng shui, the living room should be the closest to the home entrance. It is a busy space and is a form of reception for every home. It welcomes guests, brings family members closer, and is where most socialization takes place. 

Guests don’t have to roam around and pass by secluded, more private parts of our home to reach it. A living room that is located next to the entrance helps separate our energy from the energy of others, keeping a healthy energetic distance between a private and social life.

In the case when a living room is further from the entrance, it is essential to make the hallway to it as minimally decorated as possible. The path to it should always be easily walkable and as direct as possible to prevent confusion and chaos and to protect your privacy.

The Bigger Room, The Better

The principles of feng shui are best incorporated in a living room that is spacious and welcoming. Ideally, because this is the lively part of the house where chi is constantly accumulating and people are coming and leaving, it should be the biggest room in the whole home.

If your living room is already small and you can’t make it any bigger spatially, opt for light colored furniture and decor to open up the space visually and make it appear larger.

Large Windows Are Ideal

When it comes to feng shui living room ideas and design, the main rule is this: the more natural light the better, and the bigger the windows, the better. Not only does the room need to have windows and natural light, but it is also essential that those windows bring in enough sunshine to illuminate and freshen up the space. Windows are especially important because they invite fresh, high vibrational energy into the room. 

The living room needs a direct source of fresh air and natural light, as this has a positive impact on the mood and makes us feel alert and alive. If possible, it is best if the living room has a view of the yard. If not, do what you can to make the living room view as beautiful as possible. 

Opt for a Tall Ceiling

The living room is always buzzing with energy because it welcomes not only the energy of our household members but also everyone else’s energy. Narrow and slanted ceilings can make us feel suffocated and stifled. They restrict both our movement and the flow of chi in a space.

On the flip side, tall ceilings create enough space for everyone’s energy. The flow of chi is unruffled, and energy exchange flows with ease. Tall ceilings create a sense of openness, freedom, and expansion, making the stay in the living room much more pleasant.

Be Mindful of the Living Room Orientation

Similar to the front door rule, it is also preferable if the living room is located in the front of the house. This is the side of the home where we welcome people, and it's also the side that we let everyone see.

When the feng shui living room is located at the backyard-facing side of the house, it invites others to overstep boundaries and contributes to the accumulation of tension and foreign energy in a home.

Avoid Complex Space Design

In feng shui, corners provide angles for energy to get stuck. If you are designing, redesigning, or buying a new house, opt for a simple, rectangular, or square shape, as it will create a sense of balance. Four squared objects (and rooms) are considered the most stable and will create a sense of security and balance for everyone.

Complex alcoves, numerous angles, pillars, and structures create obstructions that prevent the chi from evenly and freely dispersing in the space. The room should ensure mobility and free movement, as this brings a sense of ease and peace into the space.  

Be Mindful of The Bagua Map

The Bagua map is the starting point for decorating the living room. In Feng shui, the Bagua map dictates the position of every piece of furniture and impacts the flow of good chi. It is used to help us get the most of each space, and maximize the flow of positive chi.

To start, imagine your living room as a big square map, with the entrance being located somewhere in the three bottom squares of the Bagua map.

Wealth & Prosperity Area

The upper left corner is associated with wealth and prosperity. Decorate this area with green, blue, or teal details, quality wooden elements, or purple details to invite more abundance.

Avoid metal decorative elements and furniture. This is a good spot for placing plants and creating a money corner. 

Fame & Reputation Area

The upper center of the feng shui living room layout is linked with fame and reputation. This is a great spot for a fireplace, using red details, or placing the TV or other electronics. Avoid glass decor and furniture as these will bring melancholy and lack of trust into your living space.

Love & Relationships

The Upper right corner resonates with love and relationships. When used wisely, this corner can help bring more compassion and empathy into connections with family members, roommates, and guests.

To make the most of it, decorate this corner with natural materials, such as clay or porcelain, and always opt for pairs to encourage fair collaboration and healthy communication.

Family & Community

The middle left corner is associated with family and community and is the most auspicious area to place a sofa or armchair. This corner is supposed to make everyone feel like a part of the family, giving everyone, even guests, the feeling of being "at home."

A pair of wooden side tables, a pair of soft, decorative cushions, and green and pastel details will help liven up the atmosphere here. Avoid using framed objects and metal or glass sculptures as these are associated with social withdrawal, emotional distance, and coldness.

Vitality & Health

The Center of the living room represents vitality and health. Bright yellow and other warm, welcoming tones are associated with wellbeing, warmth, and radiance and are more than welcome in this part of the room.

Square coffee tables, rich chandeliers, and yellow, brown, orange, or pastel rugs placed here have the ability to generate positive chi and increase the overall happiness of everyone sitting in the room. 

Communication & Creativity

The middle right corner of the feng shui living room represents communication and creativity. This is a great place for PVC or metal details and tables, creative corners, bookshelves, and anything that sparks imagination and connectedness through sharing ideas.

White, silver, gray, and copper shades are great here. With these elements, conversations in the living room will be interesting, lively, and exciting.

Personal Growth & Wisdom

The bottom left corner is linked with personal growth and wisdom and is best amplified with the use of blue and black shades. Glass figurines and cabinets, as well as fountains or vases in this corner are particularly auspicious. They will create a sense of healthy emotional transparency and honesty between those gathered in the room.

Life Path

Similar to the Personal Growth & Wisdom area, the bottom center of the Bagua Map represents our life path, helping us bring in people and experiences that are meant to help us feel a sense of purpose.

Friends & Helpful People

The bottom right corner of the living room resonates with the metal elements, white and gray colors, and represents friends and helpful people. Adding these here will help invite kind, openhearted people who support our growth.

Clean, Freshen-up & Declutter

Old things equate to old energy. In feng shui, unused stuff and clutter are associated with chaos, blockages, and bad chi. This is why it is essential that every piece of furniture and decor has a purpose and is well-kept and functioning.

Replace old, broken things with new ones, and get rid of the clutter that no longer serves its purpose in the living room. Things in cabinets should be neatly organized, stored, and hidden from sight.

Dust off the furniture regularly and let fresh air and sunlight in every day. This will promote the circulation of fresh, positive energy in the space, helping to eliminate stagnant energy that weighs on you.

Use the Power of Colors

A living room should feel warm and cozy. Because of that, opt for colors that remind you of nourishment, care, and joy.

• Pastels, sandy beige, white, yellow, and other light colors have the power to liven up and brighten the space.
• Dark colors, such as deep blue, dark gray, or black create a sense of mystery into the living room, inviting doubt and stirring up unpleasant emotions.
• Red, orange, and other intense colors, can be incredibly potent when added in small doses, but generally, they tend to create a tense and fired-up atmosphere. This doesn’t match the purpose of the living room, which is to relax and commune.
• Green and teal have a tranquilizing, soothing effect, can generate good chi, and are some of the most prosperity-attracting feng shui living room colors.
• If you are unsure which color to choose, always opt for white, as it will stimulate positive conversations, an exchange of ideas, and invite trust and clarity into any conversation that is had in the living room. 

Make Space for Everyone, Even Pets

A living room is a place for gathering, and it should have enough seats and cushions for every household member, plus guests. No matter how small the space is, it is essential to create a welcoming atmosphere and to enable enough sitting or relaxing spots for everyone.

If you have cats, dogs, or other pets, make a space for them in the living room as well. If your family is large or if you frequently welcome guests or host gatherings at home, it is always a good idea to have some extra seats. 

Sofa & Armchairs Should Face the Entrance

To invite positive chi, it is important for your sofa to not only lean against a wall or a sturdy piece of furniture, but it is also essential that everyone sitting in the living room has a commanding position. Every sitting place should have a view of the entrance into the room, as this will bring comfort and a sense of familiarity for everyone gathered in the living room.

Sofas or armchairs that are placed opposite the entrance are considered good chi spots, as the person sitting there has an awareness of the energy coming in and out of the room. This will give the sofa a commanding position, ease anxiety, and eliminate any sense of discomfort.

In the end, everyone gathered should feel equally welcome and at ease.

Additionally, the sofa should have a decent view of the second main element in the space, be that the TV, fireplace, or something else. In a feng shui living room, this will stimulate interaction and a positive exchange of energy.

Tend to Your Plants

Plants absorb negativity and for a busy space such as a living room, having at least one feng shui plant is a must. Healthy, well-taken care of plants elevate the chi and promote a healthy exchange of energy. Tall, large plants with rich leaves and tall bamboo are a particularly good choice. They represent life force, vitality, and health and can purify the space, helping us feel safe and grounded.

Plants boost energy and have the power to bring in good feng shui. Avoid plants that have thorns or extremely pointed leaves, as this can make the atmosphere tense and war-like. Plants placed on the right side of the couch are believed to encourage energy exchange and uplifting conversations.

Decorate Your Nook 

Did you know that room corners are particularly important in Feng shui? Because it has nowhere to go, energy in the room can easily get stuck in nooks. To prevent stagnation and promote the flow of chi in the living area, it is always a good idea to make your nooks useful.

A nook is an ideal space for a home library, a reading and writing corner, or any other activity that brings you joy. Adding furniture and decorative elements here will encourage the constant flow of chi, and prevent negative or old energy from piling up. This will increase the level of positive chi accumulated in the space making your feng shui living room a more positive, high-vibrational, and inspiring place. 

Add Artificial Lighting

A living room should always be bright, make us feel present, radiant, and awake. Apart from natural light, which is essential, this is a space that should be luminous, and have a decent light system. Investing in chandelier matters, especially because it is often located at the center of the Bagua map, which is associated with vitality. The richer and the brighter, the better the chandelier. 

A dark living room is associated with yin energy. To make the space more harmonious and inviting, it is essential to pay attention to lighting. Avoid dimmed lights, heavy curtains, and blinders as they make us feel tired and easily drained. Instead, add lamps in pairs or even numbers if you are adding multiple sources of artificial light, as this will promote equality and balance.

Optimize Your Space

When choosing furniture for the living room, it is essential to always strive for balance. The space should be optimized in such a way that makes everything look proportional. For instance, if the living room is smaller, avoid massive pieces of furniture as they will make the room look even smaller and unwelcoming. A living room that is too full is stifling as it obstructs the flow of energy, is difficult to move around in, and can easily make us feel uncomfortable. 

Having a spacious feng shui living room is the ideal scenario. However, a large room with furniture that is proportionally too small for it, will create a sense of emptiness, amplify a feeling of loneliness and melancholy. 

Additionally, every piece of furniture should be functional and have a clear purpose. Avoid using plenty of cabinets for storage in the living room, as this will create energetic blockages and prevent chi from freely moving and transforming.

Place the Couch Against the Wall

A couch is the central element of the living room, and as such, it needs to be mindfully placed.

In Feng shui, the sofa, and all other bulky pieces of furniture should be always leaning against the solid surface. Ideally, it should be placed against the wall to create support for interactions and encourage the flow of positive energy. Such a position makes everyone feel safe and secure and invites the exchange of loving energy. 

Alternatively, if your sofa can’t be backed up by a wall, support the back of the sofa with a large piece of furniture, such as a sturdy cabinet or a writing desk. In this case, the furniture shouldn’t be taller than the sofa itself. 

A sofa with a walkaway behind it or a sofa that is placed in the middle of the room invites uncertainty, anxiety, deception, and deception, as it creates a feeling that something is happening ‘’behind our back’’.

Place the TV Across the Couch

Apart from the couch, the TV is usually the first associated with the living rooms. As such, it holds special importance in space arrangement. TV is highly charged and associated with the fire element and the high accumulation and movement of chi in the space.

It should be placed parallel to the sofa, and never be too large compared to the size of the sofa and the room. For a tiny room, a big TV would disturb the balance and bring in too much fire energy in the room, causing chaos.

Ideally, the TV shouldn’t draw too much attention as the purpose of the living room is get together and socialize, and TV can pose a distraction when it’s not in active use. When not watching or using it for quality time together, such as movie nights, the TV should be turned off, so that all attention is directed towards quality conversations. Because of that, if possible, TV in the living room should be concealed or blended with the background.

Be Careful With Mirrors

Feng shui living room mirror is a double-edged sword when it comes to generating chi.

The living room is the spot where energy transits all the time and the place where we welcome energy coming from the outside. This is why the first thing to consider when thinking about choosing a mirror as living room decor is the people who you welcome in your home and the relationship you have with those you share this space with.

Do they come to you with worries and in need of a shoulder to cry on more than they do with cheerful news or a desire to have fun? Do you have frequent temper clashes in the living room with your family members? 

Mirrors, due to their ability to magnify everything they come in contact with, will make the energy in the living space too chaotic and amplify tension or highly-charged energy. The living room should be welcoming, promote harmony and joy, and a mirror can easily magnify negative energy if the room is already frequently welcoming negative energy.

In case you do choose a mirror for the living room, make sure it faces the window so that it reflects the calming, beautiful view. Mirrors can reflect light and make the space more luminous if positioned at a specific angle, so they can also be a remedy for a dark space if you want to use them to illuminate the living room. 

Decorate With Art

Art in the living room should promote balance and harmony. This is why the art pieces you opt for should be creative, fun, enjoyable to look at, but too emotionally charged. No matter if it’s a gift from a deceased loved one or a painting that brings back painful memories, an art piece that evoked melancholy, anger or other negative heavy emotions is not an ideal choice for the living room. Chosen artwork, be those paintings or sculptures, should lean on the wall and be faced towards the center of the room. 

Final Thoughts 

Feng shui not only helps us optimize the space we live in but can also improve the quality of our life and filter our negative energy in our living space. Using these principles is a way to elevate both the aesthetics and the vibration at home, and a way to invest in our happiness long term.