Color is essential to good interior design for setting a mood, supporting activities, or enhancing the beauty of any room. Creating a color palette with feng shui colors can help you achieve your decorating goals while adding the power of positive chi energy. The good news is that by using the inspiration of feng shui elements, there are no colors that are off-limits. Feng shui can help you place the colors you love in the best spot for enhancing the energy of your home.
Getting Started With Feng Shui Colors
There is nothing in feng shui principles that dictates you must paint your walls in specific colors, but color is used to attract and enhance positive chi. In Western Feng Shui, you can use the bagua map or feng shui elements to inspire color for every room. There are two paths to finding the right feng shui room colors, and both lead to elements as inspiration. But first, you'll need to define your goal for the space you're going to be painting or accessorizing.
Define the Feng Shui Color Goals for Your Room
Finding the right feng shui room color starts with defining your goal for the space. Often, people decide to change the paint color in a room without knowing that they're really trying to change the energy, not just the color. Each type of room in your home has a feng shui element, and its positive energy can be enhanced through that element's colors. This is the simplest way to choose feng shui colors for your home.
How to Use Feng Shui Elements for Color Inspiration
You can easily choose colors for your space by learning the characteristics of feng shui elements, and choosing the ones you'd like to highlight to improve the energy. For example, a sleepy home office may benefit from the fire element colors to energize it for working. As feng shui principles do not prescribe specific colors, it gives you the freedom to pick and choose colors that inspire and energize you.
How to Use Bagua Map to Identify Auspicious Room Elements
In Western Feng Shui, you can use a bagua map to identify areas in a home that correspond with a feng shui element and the most auspicious use of that room. Using a simple floor plan of your home (yes, even a hand drawn plan), you can see where those areas are on the bagua map and learn the corresponding element. Simply place the bagua map (below) over your home's or room's layout with the bottom of the map aligned with the front of your home.
Identifying the area using the bagua map gives you insight into the element and colors that will enhance the room's energy. You can also apply this simple rectangular baqua map to any room to identify which area of it represents the aspect of chi energy you'd like to enhance. This approach is more casual than the feng shui cure approach that you may be familiar with, and it's perfect for finding feng shui colors you enjoy.
Feng Shui Room Colors
Whether you choose to create a color palette inspired by feng shui elements or the bagua map, personal preference still plays an important role in color selection. Any positive chi generated by the use of element colors or the bagua map will be erased if you don't enjoy the colors you chose. With so many color choices, you can find a shade that is right for your space.
Energize Your Rooms With Feng Shui Paint Colors
You'll see the term energize a lot when learning about feng shui. Positive chi energy is the basis for good feng shui, and color can help or hinder it. An important aspect in choosing color is that adding positive chi energy doesn't always mean energy as in drinking too many cups of coffee or painting a wall bright yellow. Positive chi means both restive and vibrant energy that is right for the space. For example, a chaotic living room may benefit from enhancing a calming chi energy to quiet it down. Each room has a yin or yang personality that also can inspire a feng shui paint color palette. Using hex codes from the included feng shui room color palettes, you can find paint and decor colors to use at home. Most paint colors are represented by a hex code and are easy to find online. For other types of decor, the hex code colors are great for inspiration when choosing accent colors and decor.
Relaxing and Romantic Colors for Feng Shui Bedrooms
Bedrooms are considered yin spaces in feng shui and represented by the earth element. The best colors for a relaxing yin bedroom are pastels and other soft colors. The bedroom is also considered as the center of love and relationships on the bagua map. Using the bagua map, you may find that your bedroom does not fall into the Kun area, which is favored for love and romance. By applying the bagua map on a single room, you can find the area in your bedroom that can benefit from the Kun colors of pink and red, and add them as accents.
- Cream and Soft White: This is a yin alternative to bright white, and it is more relaxed and soothing. Try hex code color #f8eedb or #f6f2e8.
- Pink: The most auspicious color to encourage romance, in all shades. Try hex code color #efded8.
- Lavender: A sophisticated yin color that encourages rest. Try hex code color #dfdce5.
- Pastel Yellow: A pale yellow wall color can brighten a dark bedroom, while still enhancing yin energy. Try hex code color #f2eac3.
- Pastel Blue: Light blue, with a touch of lavender, can calm a bedroom with too much natural light. Try hex code color #dfe8e4.
- Beige or Soft Taupe: Pale neutral colors encourage yin energy. Try hex code color #c4b7a5.
- Brown: A rich brown color can also be used in your bedroom color palette as wood furniture or flooring. Try hex code color #63523d.
Color for a Feng Shui Kitchen
Your kitchen has strong yang fire energy, so it's easy to feel overwhelmed if the colors of fire energy dominate the space. The bagua map shows that a kitchen benefits from feng shui colors and elements that encourage the Zhen energy of health and family, so choosing colors to tame the fire energy while encouraging happy family energy should be your goal in choosing color. If your kitchen does not fit into the Zhen area on the bagua map, you can balance its chi energy with the colors and elements associated with that area within the kitchen, including fire and wood.
- Green: All greens and browns represent the wood element that fuels the fire element. Try hex code color #71713e or #e0ddbd.
- Brown: This wood element is often present in cabinets and flooring. Try hex code color #63523d.
- Yellow: Yellow can be a cheerful color to enhance the fire element without overwhelming the room. Try hex code color #f6e3a1.
- Orange: This is another fire element color, and it makes an excellent accent color. Try hex code color #df984e.
- Red: The most vibrant fire element color that can lead to a chaotic kitchen if overused. Try hex code color #83382a.
- Cream: Cream and soft white are excellent choices for cabinetry and provide feng shui balance to bolder colors. Try hex code color #f8eedb.
Feng Shui Paint Colors for the Dining Room
This is a very important room when it comes to creating abundance and positive family gatherings. On the bagua, it's auspicious for a dining room to appear in the Zhen (health/family) or Xun (wealth/prosperity) areas. Your color scheme can incorporate both bagua areas and their elements to create a harmonious space. To accomplish this, the best feng shui dining room colors include:
- Pink to peach: These are warm and inviting colors that promote cheerful gatherings. Try hex code color #e0b392.
- Yellow: This color inspires and creates an auspicious feeling. Try hex code color #f6e3a1.
- Green: Relaxing shades of green invite family and friends to linger over meals. Try hex code color #dce1b8.
- Cream: This natural neutral color generates calming and auspicious energy. Try hex code color #f8eedb.
- Taupe or Beige: These soothing neutral colors work well to complement cheerful feng shui dining room colors. Try hex code color #d9cfba or ad9c85.
Bathroom Colors for Auspicious Feng Shui
The most popular color schemes for bathrooms often feature colors that are problematic for achieving good feng shui. There is an abundance of water energy in a bathroom, intensified by white, gray, and pale blues and greens. When your color scheme is based on colors that represent the water element, this can lead to an imbalance of chi energy. The bathroom is considered inauspicious since waste water is negative chi, and its flow downward represents the loss of wealth. To balance the water element in your bathroom, add warm accents like a teak bench, wicker hamper, or artwork depicting warm landscapes. By choosing soft or light warm color for your feng shui bathroom, you can encourage yin energy that is auspicious for the bathroom.
- Warm Neutrals: Suppress inauspicious waste water with this wide color range from white, cream to all browns. Try hex code color #b9b2a9.
- Pale Spa Blue: Blue colors enhance water energy, but this soft green undertone can keep water energy from feeling sterile. Try hex code color #dfe8e4.
- Soft Green: Give your bathroom a natural look with soft green to balance excessive water energy. Try hex code color #d4dcd3.
- Gray: Look for rich grays and greige to balance the strong metal energy of nickel and stainless steel bath fixtures. Try hex code color #63655f.
- Muted Yellow and Gold: Adding muted yellow accents in linens and art can subtly warm up a cold bathroom color palette. Try hex code color #dcc797.
Feng Shui Living Room Colors
As the place to gather and relax with friends and family, the colors you select for your living room will set the mood for the activities in this room. Yang colors will energize the decor while more restive yin colors will be conducive to relaxing and rest. You may want a balance of yin and yang living room colors to create a more harmonious environment. The living room can benefit from the colors and energies of the Zhen (health/family), Dui (creativity/children), and the Xun (wealth/prosperity) areas of the bagua. You can enhance those areas within your living room, regardless of where it appears on the bagua map, by incorporating colors from these areas. Each living room is different, as are the activities and mood in every home. Choosing colors that are pleasing to you and that radiate positive energy to encourage use of the living room is the most important consideration.
- Warm Neutrals: Colors like greige and taupe set the mood for a tranquil living room dedicated to relaxation. Try hex code color #b9b2a9.
- Green: Whether vivid or muted, green offers endless choices to suit your home's energy level. Try hex code color #d4dcd3.
- Blue: Cheerful, friendly, and welcoming, blue is very livable. Navy blue is a versatile neutral for the living room. Try hex code color #2b4360.
- Yellow: Soft or vibrant yellow and gold can be the perfect accent to balance mellow yin energy by adding a touch of yang. Try hex code color #f8ddb7.
Enhance Laundry Room Chi With Color
Like bathrooms, laundry rooms can generate negative chi with overwhelming water energy. Because water moving downward through drains can affect prosperity and wealth, color choice is important in your laundry room. Soft and light colors are beautiful choices for laundry rooms, but it's important to add a few warm colors as accents to keep the chi energy balanced. Open wood shelves and wicker hampers are popular ways to add warm neutral colors to a laundry room.
- White: This metal color is not only crisp and clean, but it encourages water energy when combined with other colors in the laundry room. Try hex code color #f6f2e8.
- Muted blue: Blue represents water, so feel free to choose a shade that incorporates a green undertone to balance the water energy. Try hex code color #a6b2b5.
- Beige and Greige: An earth element color is ideal for balancing cold metal elements. Try hex code color #b9b2a9 or #e2ded8.
- Gray: From pale gray to charcoal, gray can be a stabilizing color as part of an airy feng shui laundry room color palette. Try hex code color #c8cbc4.
Choose Color That Makes You Happy
While color doesn't specifically activate elements, using colors you love can generate positive chi and harmony at home. The goal of feng shui color is to support your goals and invite positive energy in your home. Remember, the best color scheme is the one that enhances the comfort and energy of your space.
