27 Things to Feng Shui Your Home

Last summer, I bought a wonderful little brown book called 27 Things to Feng Shui Your Home by Tisha Morris. (I would include a cover image, but Blogger is currently acting like a stinker, and for whatever reason, even after changing my internet options as directed, I still cannot upload an image!)

The Chinese apparently have a saying, "If you want to change your life, move 27 things in your home." So Tisha Morris used that in her title, and in 27 chapters, talks about the things you can do to change your home AND your life.  

1 Clean out your closet

2 Clear doorways

3 Clear hallways

4 Clear out old pictures

5 Get rid of unwanted gifts

6 Get rid of “just in case” items

7 Change your wall art

8 Hang a vision board

9 Make your bedroom a sanctuary

10 Paint a room

11 Rearrange a room

12 Create a sacred space

13 Paint your front door

14 Repairs and improvements:

15 Make your least favorite room your favorite

16 clean

17 Clean your windows

18 Space clean with sage

19 Ring some bells

20 Add crystals

21 Add mirrors

22 Add flowers/plants

23 Integrate the five elements

24 Enhance the lighting

25 Stimulate the senses

26 Add pink to enhance your love life

27 Add purple to bring in wealth


It took me about six weeks' worth of my spare time (weekends and each morning before work for an hour), but I have now done most of her suggestions. And I have to say that I LOVE the results. My home now feels so much more inviting and comfortable, and I know it will feel that way to guests as well. My younger daughter came home for a short visit yesterday and she couldn't stop marveling about the way everything looks.

But Tisha started me on a journey that didn't stop at 27 things. I kept track, and it was more like 61!!!

I'm going to include the list, if for no other reason than for me to be able to look back at what I have, so far, accomplished. And I am not done! There's more delicious decorating to do, and all as a result of reading this truly life-changing book. Thank you, Tisha Morris!!


This is what have done, so far as a result:

1. Created a writing room

2. Created a scrapbooking room

3. Reorganized my 3713 writing files (which were already fairly well organized, but not perfectly so).

4. Updated my picture files.

5. Sent a 1200 word writing sample to the SCBWI retreat coordinator for the Writing Retreat on Hood Canal in November. (Was later accepted as one of 20 participants).

6. Printed “loose” notes on psychology/coaching/motivation that I’d found during my file reorganization project and put them in a notebook comprised of that type of notes.

7. Created a new coaching notebook with all of my current goals and strategies for achieving them

8. Cleaned my bedroom from top to bottom (vacuumed mattress and etc)

9. Put away summer clothes, took out fall/winter ones and bought a bunch of new clothes

10. Took the standing jewelry chest of one of my daughter’s (she didn’t want it) and brought it up from the basement, cleaned it and put my own jewelry in it. Bought a couple of bead storage boxes, and was able to give each of my 150+ pairs of earrings a separate storage compartment, in addition to great storage for my necklaces, bracelets and brooches

11. De-cluttered the third-floor hallway

12. Cleaned/straightened (de-cluttered) the linen closet

13. Washed all sofa pillows, all sofa throws, all sleeping bags, all throw rugs, all bed pillows and two comforters

14. Cleaned all three bathrooms, including cabinet reorganization

15. Ordered some curtains to cover the bookshelves in my office. I deal with books all day at work. My work office is full of books, as I am a librarian. My home office looks like a library—and while I want the books to be there, I don’t want to have to look at them. They’re too distracting while I write. I want the room to feel comfortable.

16. Bought a 7’ silk tree to go in the living room, as well as seven-silk flower arrangements to go in various other areas of the home. (My home office, the living room, the dining room, the foyer.)

17. De-cluttered and reorganized the storage room, basically turning it into a library, in addition to it being filled with four crates of photos, three crates of “vintage” clothing, one crate of 14 porcelain dolls, one crate of paperdolls, four crates of Christmas decorations, and six crates of accounting/income tax information.

18. Put ALL of my younger daughter’s things into a spare bedroom in the basement.

19. Filled four crates with my kids’ toys that are in still great shape (stuffed animals, puppets, etc) for the grandkids to play with

20. Swept the basement

21. Set up the teepee and a children’s play corner in the basement

22. Took Christmas decorations that’d been under the basement stairs and in one of the three china cabinets on the main floor upstairs to the storage room so that now all Christmas decorations are in the same area

23. Took painting/wallpapering supplies from third-floor storage room and put them under the basement stairs

24. All suitcases, camping supplies and sleeping bags are now in the basement storage room

25. Cleaned the oven

26. Cleaned the freezer

27. Cleaned the refrigerator

28. Cleaned/rearranged the kitchen cabinets

29. Cleared everything out of the closet in the basement (that’d been filled with my daughter’s things) and moved it all to her own “mini-storage”—the spare bedroom in the basement. (was about 12-15 crates’ worth in that one closet alone)

30. Cleaned/wiped all kitchen cabinets/counters in basement kitchen

31. Set up a children’s art center in the basement

32. Set up a gift wrapping center in the basement

33. Cleaned 11 light fixtures in the kitchen/dining room areas

34. RSS’d about 150 writer blogs as “the next step” in the (future) switch from my blog being a book review blog to that of being a writer’s blog.

35. Dealt with files in the tall oak filing cabinet

36. Cleaned and organized the laundry room: cabinets and closet; washed laundry room curtains & cleaned light fixture; set up cabinet areas—one exclusively for cleaning supplies, and another exclusively for laundry supplies, in addition to the rest of the cabinets being for my husband’s clothing

37. Cleaned my husband’s clothes closet in our bedroom

38. Cleaned/organized chest of drawers in bedroom and drawers in bedside tables

39. Dealt w/ the remaining pile of chaos in bedroom (clothes that needed to be sorted/put in bags for Goodwill or other

40. Bought and installed a foam mattress pad, plus plush mattress cover and 2 sheet sets.

41. Bought and hung curtains for three basement windows

42. Created Feng Shui bagua maps for all three floors of the house, with ideas for further decorating

43. Sorted through images on free image websites and downloaded 350 pix for blog posts on various concepts

44. Sorted all 300 RSS feeds that I subscribe to, and placed them into various folders.

45. Bought four books on creating wall art

46. Hung closet doors in basement

47. Spent 10 hours preparing to shampoo, and then shampooing the upholstery, stairs, carpets on two floors, and 2-5x8 oriental carpets.

48. Assessed contents of the three china cabinets and got rid of some things, decided to display other things, and put still other items in the storage room, as they are Christmas decorations

49. Rearranged the furniture in the foyer, dining and living rooms

50. De-cluttered and rearranged the contents of my home office

51. Ordered many new things to redecorate my home: a new bedspread, curtains for nine windows, an oriental carpet for the kitchen, a mirror for dining room, lamps, artwork. (I have a middle-class income, and so JC Penny's works for me.)

52. Made plans for walls (and entire rooms) that I want to paint in new colors

53. Made plans for further decorating: additional new things that I want to purchase for various rooms, and/or action steps to be implemented as I am able

54. Read one of the two books on writing, as requested by the editors who will be at the writing retreat in Western Washington, first week in November

55. Dealt with the last few pieces of clutter on the main floor (after having removed many, many bags of trash). These were items that belonged to my children and needed to go to them!

56. Washed and re-hung the linen closet doors. They are wooden, louver doors that had collected thick dust in the louvers. Was able to rout out the dust with a power brush and Windex.

57. Washed all of my jewelry in hot, sudsy water with a dollop of ammonia.

58. Created a master calendar for meals and housework tasks

59. Finished reading a book on home lighting, taking notes, and implementing ideas. Bought 2 uplights, 2 accent lamps, 2 puck lights to light up the new tree. Still need to buy two torchieres.

60. Took off the “no kid” latches that were on the basement cabs and drawers

61. Ordered “The Presence Process,” a book that I’d checked out from the library, renewed, and then decided I needed to buy my own copy. I couldn’t keep renewing it, even if I am a librarian. It’s not appropriate to hog new books!