Feng Shui Homework: 9 To-Do's for Your Home Office

Room & Board's Chilton table makes a great home office desk.

Who wouldn’t want to work from home? Ahhhh! Working from home can definitely have its advantages. You save time. You save money on commuting. You can manage your personal obligations in between breaks.

However, some people can’t seem to grasp the balance when working from home. They seem to get distracted very easily, not accomplishing much, or perhaps taking too many naps. Some tend to overeat, aimlessly surf the Web, and watch TV as opposed to the time clock. Before you decide to work from home, you must be really honest with yourself and ask a few important questions. 

• Is a home office the best environment for my personality?
• Will I be able to separate my work life and home life while in one space?
• Do I think I will eat more? drink more? waste more time?

From a feng shui perspective, a working-from-home environment can be a real challenge. If you can’t find a balance between work and your private life, it may cause you more stress than anything else.

Here are the top 9 suggestions to help you create a harmonious work-from-home-environment. And, these tips are 9 in number for a good reason. The number 9 is the number with the highest energy. Hopefully, these suggestions will give you a great jump start!

1. Pick a room or a space as separate as possible from your home life. For example, it is not advised to have your “office desk” in the same space as your living room or TV room. If you have a spare room, use it. If the only extra space you have to create a home office is in the basement, that’s not ideal, but it is doable. Just makes sure you have a lot of uprising energy represented, such as up-lighting, the color green, ventilation, and hopefully some natural light.
2. Make sure you do not put your desk in a vulnerable position. It should be facing the door but not directly in front of it.
3. Your chair should have support by having a solid wall behind it. A window behind the chair is not advised. If there are no other solutions, use heavy drapery to symbolically create that support.
4. Your chair should be comfortable for you. It should give your body good support. Consider one with a high back, armrests, wheels, and the ability to turn from side to side (so good "motion seating"). You don’t want to ever feel that you are "stuck" or rigid.West Elm's Swivel Leather Desk Chair meets all of our feng shui requirements.
5. Be mindful of what you see in front of you when sitting at your desk. Is it a window with a view of the outdoors? This may lead you to daydream and perhaps not focus on work. Is it a blank wall? This may cause you to feel blocked and perhaps curtail your ability to come up with new ideas. Instead, make sure that what is in front of you is inspirational and matches your goals and dreams.
6. Yes, you can have family photos in your home office, but just don’t overdo it. It may subconsciously confuse you and distract you from what needs to be accomplished.
7. Nowadays any office has computers and electronic devices. Make sure you have enough plants to help combat the negative electrical energy that is associated with these devises. Water lily and spider plants are highly recommended.
8. Keep track of your work hours, even if you don’t have to.  If you are in a position where you have to track your hours in order to bill a client, then this is quite easy for you. However, many entrepreneurs accumulate “work hours” working on their own stuff. It’s always important to "clock ourselves in and clock ourselves out." This way we can see how much time we are actually spending on work and on how much time we're really goofing off.
9. Remember to smile as often as possible while working ... even if you don’t want to. This may lead to the occasional unnecessary giggles or laughter. Since you are working from home, chances are that no one will see you, so you don’t have to explain this to anyone! It's always good to lighten your mood.

CB2 has a contemporary range of furniture for the home office.

Feng Shui Homework

Your homework for this month: work on getting your home work space separate from your personal home living space. It may not be easy, but at least start tackling it.

Until next month,

Franca

Franca is a Feng Shui Student Advisor and Instructor at Sheffield School; visit her website for more information. If you're interested in learning more about feng shui and interior design, then we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

• Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.
• Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

Win Our Interior Transformations Book Contest

Are you a decorating enthusiast? Do you obsess over fabrics, patterns, and color? Do you spend inordinate amounts of time in the furniture section? If you said yes to all, then we have the book for you.  Ann Grafton of the Colefax Group shares her decorating expertise with her book, Interior Transformations. 

Filled with gorgeous photos, Interior Transformations will inspire you to rethink your home's interior design. Grafton works her magic with beautiful fabrics, unique accessories, and furniture that works in any home.

Win a Free Copy

To win the book, please leave a comment below letting us know who your favorite interior designer/decorator is and why and we’ll select a winner at the end of Wednesday, June 19^th.  We’ll contact the winner via email and announce the Interior Transformations book winner next week. Last week's winner of our New Rooms book was Sharon from New Mexico.

Garden Styling

When we finish putting our stamp on the interior design of the home, we like to venture out to our gardens and enjoy a fresh breeze.  While nothing can compete with Mother Nature’s floral and green splendor, you can still style your garden furnishings to add that personal touch. 

In choosing your garden furniture, you don’t have to stick to the humdrum rattan chairs or worse, the cheap plastic furniture.  There are many choices to turn to and we chose some favorites here, what I call Parisian Chic and British Colonial.  

Paris is well known for cafes that line up wide boulevards. One can imagine a Parisienne bicycling up to one and meeting a friend for a croissant.  In our Parisian garden, we can enjoy our cafe on delicate iron cafe furniture from Evergreen with La Mer pillow and citrusy candleholders from Crate and Barrel. And for that special chic touch, an old-fashioned bicycle turned planter to display your blooms.

If you want a somewhat more formal garden look, take a look at our British Colonial garden. We chose the Ceylon armchairs from Ballard Designs, made of weather-resistant eucalyptus wood.  The floral Catana outdoor pillow is also from Ballard. We potted our plants in a crackle-finish blue ceramic planter from Evergreen. Instead of an ordinary side table, we used a garden stool, Cathay, in a Chinese porcelain style.

Interested in learning more about furniture and interior design? Take a look at Sheffield School's Complete Course in Interior Design.  At Sheffield, you will learn how to transform a space, create color schemes, and select furniture, lighting, and accessories.

Interior Design Inspiration: Gustav Klimt Decoration and Detail

As the book cover above shows, Gustav Klimt was way, way, way over the top when it came to design and decoration. This is an approach to style that our interior design students can take a cue from in their own work, and it's used by many successful designers working in residential design today. You'll see echoes of Klimt's minute attention to decoration when you read about interior designers who define their style as "More is more" or "It's all in the details." Klimt would agree. I was inspired by Tashen's sumptuous book, Gustav Klimt: The Complete Paintings. "Paintings" is a bit of a misnomer, however, as the cover work of art is from the spectacular Tree of Life frieze composed of Carrara marble, gold and silver mosaic, colored ceramics, enamel, mother-of-pearl, semi-precious stones, sheet metal, and gold leaf in the dining room (below) of Brussels' Palais Stoclet, probably one of the most beautiful homes ever designed (the overall design and architecture was by Austrian architect Josef Hoffmann, executed by Klimt and other artists and craftsmen from the famed Wiener Wekstatte or "Viennese Workshop"). Historic interiors great artists like Klimt inspire us to create a more detailed and layered room scheme. The marble walls, the glassy surfaces in Klimt's mosaics, and the highly-reflective dining room table were meant to create a magical world of glittering light when a multitude of candles were lit on table candelabra and the wall sconces. It's that kind of thoughtful attention to appearance and the harmonious interplay of all elements in a room that we teach and would like our students to internalize.

If you're interested in learning more about interior design and decorating strategies, we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

Jewelry Inspiration: Combining Beads with a Surprise Medium

Niki Stylianou
Necklace: Spheres 2009
Rubber hand cut + hand painted+ fabricated, metal, turquoise beads 
Photo : Niki Stylianou

 
Klimt02 is a website that provides an international forum for contemporary jewelry in a creative space that offers knowledge, information, debates, and exchanges - all within the artistic realm of jewelry. Based in Barcelona, Spain, Kilmt02 inspires everyone interested in the selection, quality, art, technology, and creation of art jewelry. Sheffield School has kindly been given permission to share works of global designers here on our website. Today's post focuses on a jewelry designer from Athens, Niki Stylianou. Click here for more samples of her work made from beads - as our jewelry design students are learning to use - and rubber!

Niki Stylianou

Niki Stylianou
Necklace: Fragments 2010
Rubber hand cut + fabricated, white coral beads
Photo : Niki Stylianou

Niki Stylianou
Pendant: Sections 2010
Rubber hand cut + hand sewn, threads, beads, oxidized silver
Front view
Photo : Niki Stylianou

Niki Stylianou
Pendant: Sections 2010
Rubber hand cut + hand sewn, threads, beads, oxidized silver
Back view
Photo : Niki Stylianou

Niki Stylianou
Neckpiece: Colonies 2010
Rubber hand cut + hand painted + fabricated, beads, gum elastic, silver
Detail
Photo: Niki Stylianou

Statement

The Ancient Greek word «kosmos» could be read as rhythm; as order; as the making of a pattern that could be traced again and again and be embodied in the cosmos as we understand it. In a way «kosmos» makes the cosmos visible.   «Kosmos» could also be read as adornment. Homeric epics describe how «kosmos» clothes the body as a second skin to make it appear. Through my work I try to redefine «kosmos», designing adornments made of ordinary and overlooked everyday objects. Things that I de-construct and re-arrange in space/puzzles, that clothe the body while speaking of immaterial relationships:  The precious and the non-precious; the beautiful and the ambiguous; the familiar and the unusual; the lasting and the ephemeral.  website: www.nikistylianoujewelry.com mail: nikistyl@artserve.net

If you're interested in learning more about jewelry design, we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.