5 Tips for Vibrant Kitchen Feng Shui

Author: Kathleen Tumpane

The Kitchen is a very powerful place, feng shui-wise. It is the heart of the home. Like your heart, it is deserves special care for optimal health. Does your Kitchen delight the senses? Or it is usually an eyesore?

The kitchen will positively affect the part of your life and your body it relates to when :

1. The kitchen counter surfaces are primarily clear and ready to allow you to prepare yummy, healthy meals. Even if you eat out nearly all the time. You’ll want some beautiful, colorful, bountiful feeling art, accessories, or even just bowls of real fruit. A healthy plant or two.

What you don’t want are counters so stuffed with occasionally used appliances and stacks of papers that it is impossible to use the kitchen without clearing a space first.

2. Ideally, knives are kept in drawers. Yes, they probably came in a beautiful counter top knife block, but it is not good feng shui to have knives so easily accessible, especially if there are children in the house. And even if they aren’t. Williams Sonoma has in-drawer knife blocks.

3. Your kitchen will have two, three, or four drains. Drains can drain your finances, your physical health, your aspirations to travel, clog your sinuses, and otherwise wreak havoc, depending on the kitchen location in relation to the feng shui grid.

Ideally, you keep all those drains closed unless you’re using them. In reality, that can be a real hassle. Which isn’t good feng shui either.

You can energetically keep your drains closed with kitchen sink strainers.

4. Can you see the front of your refrigerator? Or it is covered with photos, kid art, exercise class schedules, calorie/fat charts, coupons, and a horde of marauding magnets?

It is good feng shui to display your child’s art. It’s even good feng shui to do so on your refrigerator. However, not willy nilly and not in the midst of all that other stuff. If you are honoring your child’s artistic endeavors, honor it. Display it clearly.

Photos of people who love and support you, depicting fun vacations and personal celebrations are great for the refrigerator door. Create a pleasing composition of items with the door as the canvas.

Tape exercise class schedules to the INSIDE of a cabinet door. Ditto calorie/fat counters. They are handy but don’t nag you, there.

5. Out of sight is not out of mind in feng shui, so if your kitchen cabinets are stuffed with appliances, containers, multiple sets of china, and even food you haven’t used in over a year, it’s time for some clutter clearing.
Cleared out cabinets frees your creativity and your respiratory system if that is the part of the grid where your kitchen lies. If it is in your Relationship area, cleared cabinets help you clear out your emotional baggage and be fully present with your sweetie.

The basic question to guide your Kitchen Feng Shui is this: Does your Kitchen delight your senses … or not?

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Sports flooring: Make the right choice

Author: Kathleen Chester

Indoor or backyard sports facilities are a pleasure to have in any house. Besides helping you and your family to stay active and healthy, these also enhance the appeal of your home. Before you install artificial flooring in your home, however, consider your requirements. Do you want to build a home gym in your home or backyard? Or would it be a basketball/badminton court in the backyard complete with all the facilities possible? Once you have a clear picture of your requirements, it is time to pick the right flooring.

If you chose to build a home gym, go for rubber flooring. There is simply nothing else available that can compete with rubber in this case. You can go for long, 3.5” thick rubber flooring, that you can roll out like a carpet. Buy additional rubber mats and put them in places where you may drop heavy dumb bells or bar-bells repeatedly. Rubber is great for absorbing punishment and for muffling the sound produced by dropped equipment. If you perform maintenance occasionally (around once a week), then you can look forward to getting 5-6 years of good service from your rubber floor.

When the floor gets dirty, simply mop it with water and let it dry. The additional mats may get frayed sooner than the floor itself, but these come cheap and are easy to replace. These floors and mats come in various colors, such as, black, green, red, orange, etc. and patterns, such as, diamond, ribbed, checkerboard, or even plain flat. Thus these can match your home décor perfectly.

If you are looking to put up a sports court in your backyard, choose the surface material carefully. A basketball or badminton court will benefit from synthetic turfs. These turfs come in various colors, such as, green, orange, brown, and a host of other colors. The turf can even be emblazoned with the logo of your favorite sports team or just about any picture, thus giving you a personalized experience. These are waterproof, fire retardant, and highly resistant to regular wear and tear. When it gets dirty, you can simply hose it to wash it clean. Unlike natural grass, synthetic turf prevents the growth of insects and mites, and thus stays safe for even children.

Sports flooring can be an ideal way to add value to your house. If you do choose to sell the house in future, well-maintained sports flooring will boost the market value of the house to a great extent. Above all, it is great for creating a personalized space in the house, just for you and your family.

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