Is Your House the Right Color For Success?
Feng shui says that color choice can affect occupants’ success
If your relationships are tired and money flies through your hands, your house might just be the wrong color. Maybe life is a constant struggle and you can’t put your finger on the one small thing blocking your success. The answer could be as simple as the color on your house.
For instance, if your house is painted the wrong color for the direction it faces, you might be losing money. A good example of this is an east- or southeast-facing house that is painted white. This is a great example of houses that lose money or whose residents suffer from ill health or poor family relationships. White is the color of metal, and east and southeast are wood-facing directions. Because metal cuts wood (think of an ax or a chainsaw against a tree), the success of the house is affected.
House colors can be confusing
When it comes to choosing house colors, it can be very confusing to most people. Most are not sure what will look good or what the best choice is for their house. Feng shui provides several starting points for color selection because each color has a different meaning and direction associated with it. And, if you can paint your house a color that is harmonious with the direction it faces, you will help create a beneficial environment in the home, and help harmonize it with the environment, thereby making life go smoother and easier.
For example, color in feng shui means different things. Black is the color of money, but a black house won’t necessarily make you rich. However, a house that faces north and is painted white with black trim on the shutters and front door, and has brass trimmings, is a perfect example of a house that is harmonized with its environment. That’s because white is a metal color and metal makes water — making white a “productive color” for a house.
So, by being harmonious with the environment (a north house painted a north color), the more you increase your chances that north-related benefits will come to you: more job opportunities, career advancement, satisfying job — and possibly — more money. That’s because the color and direction are harmonious. Feng shui is often referred to as a method for creating harmony. Harmony – in feng shui – means that colors, elements, shapes, and numbers are all supportive and beneficial for one another.
A Feng Shui Guide to Choosing House Color
Use feng shui to harmonize your house color with the direction that it faces:
White (creativity/children): Good for west, northwest and north-facing houses as it reflects light well.
Green/Purple (growth/good health/wealth): Good for east and south-facing houses.
Blue/Purple (career/wealth/opportunities): Good for north, east, and southeast facing houses.
Yellow/Beiges/Gold (ochre) (relationships/stability): Good for northeast, west, southwest, and northwest facing house. Yellow is a color of wisdom and study and smart decisions.
Reds/Pinks (social status, recognition, relationships): South, southwest, and NE facing houses benefit from these colors.
Browns: Good for growth and longevity and excellent for east-facing houses and good for the south (fire) direction.
Taupes (relationships, stability, grounding). This color is excellent for the northeast and southwest because these are “earth” directions and taupes are earthy or stone-type colors. It also helps stabilize relationships and promote family harmony – particularly for the woman of the household.
What about trim colors?
White is always a good option, as is a lighter shade of the predominant color. Choose a dark door color from the list of corresponding colors. Or choose a darker shade for siding and lighter shade for the door and trim.
Why not paint a “stone location” with a “wood” color?
Remember, you always want to paint your house a color that is harmonious for the direction it faces. If your house faces SW (an earth direction), and you paint it a wood color, such as green or brown, this will create difficulty with the relationships in the house. Likewise, if you paint a south-facing house white, the residents might struggle with gaining recognition at work or have a problem with neighbors.
Selecting color by direction helps guarantee that your house color will be harmonious with its environment. Harmonizing the color also compounds your feng shui — something you want to do as often as possible because good feng shui is cumulative. So, get out the paint brushes and harmonize your house — and all your rooms!
Tour “The Breakers” of Newport, RI – Jewel of a Mansion From the Gilded Age
Newport, Rhode Island’s Bellevue Avenue is studded with opulent jewels-mansions of the Gilded Age. Signs point to their secluded whereabouts along the main fare and side streets to the sparkle of: The Breakers, Chateau-sur-Mer, The Elms, Green Animals Topiary Garden, Hunter House, Isaac Bell House, Kingscote, Marble House, and Rosecliff. A native Rhode Islander who has made her grand entrance in all of them, The Breakers remains my favorite. The largest summer “cottage” in the city along the Atlantic at the turn of the twentieth century is the most-visited attraction in Rhode Island, with approximately 300,000 visitors annually. The mansion is open 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. for self-guided audio tours year round except for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Beginning May 29, the Children’s Cottage opens daily along with the Stable & Carriage House for weekends and holidays. Adult admission is $19, children 6-17 just $5, tots under 6 admitted free.
An edifice of such magnitude needs an introduction for one to better appreciate the grandeur from which it sprung-the Gilded Age. This term referenced the process of “gilding,” intent on ridiculing ostentation adopted by filthy rich industrialists and financiers such as Cornelius Vanderbilt– lumped with other wealthy entrepreneurs accused of cheating commoners to make their money. Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1794-1877) established the family fortune in steamships and the New York Central Railroad, pivotal to the industrial growth of the nation during the late 19th century. Grandson, Cornelius Vanderbilt II, became Chairman and President of the New York Central Railroad system in 1885, and purchased a wooden house called The Breakers in Newport during that same year. In 1893, he commissioned architect Richard Morris Hunt to design a villa to replace the earlier wood-framed house destroyed by fire the previous year. Hunt directed an international team of craftsmen and artisans to create a 70 room Italian Renaissance style palazzo inspired by the 16th century palaces of Genoa and Turin.
The Vanderbilts had seven children. Their youngest daughter, Gladys, who married Count Laszlo Szechenyi of Hungary, inherited the house after her mother’s death in 1934. In 1948, she leased the high-maintenance property to the non-profit Preservation Society of Newport County for $1 a year. The Society bought the Breakers outright in 1972 for $365,000. The agreement with the Society allows family descendants to continue to live on the third floor, not open to the public, and hidden from the tourists who explore the rooms below.
A preliminary breakdown of The Breakers: The mansion on Ochre Point Avenue which cost more than $7 million to build during its construction from 1893-1895 has approximately 65,000 feet of living space. The edge of the 13-acre estate affords one a breathtaking view of the Atlantic whose waves break against the sea cliffs. One enters the property through sculpted wrought iron gates, part of a 12-foot high limestone and iron fence which borders the property on all but the ocean side. Since Cornelius Vanderbilt II stipulated his home be as fireproof as possible, the structure of the building consists of steel trusses and no wooden parts. The furnace is situated away from the house. The interior is accented with marble imported from Italy and Africa, plus rare woods and mosaics from countries around the world. The library mantel was purchased from a chateau in France. The Gold Room was originally constructed in France, disassembled, shipped in airtight cases, and re-assembled in place in Newport. The baths have faucets for hot and cold fresh and salt water.
The Breakers is the grandest of Newport’s summer “cottages”– jewel of the Gilded Age. Open for tourists year round, this 70 room Italian Renaissance style palazzo enables one to step into the opulence of high society at the turn of the twentieth century. Slip on the headphones and tour this magnificent mansion from a bygone era at your own leisurely pace.
The Little Ochre House
There it is, just as it always was, a little ochre house sitting on the banks of the bayou, minding its business and never disturbing others. I have driven by it a thousand times, usually deliberate and with purpose. Seeing this little ochre house always made me aware of yesterday and how things were here in the Deep South when life was simple. It told me a story of a time when families grew up in the country and little patches of land supplied them with nutrition and the nearby woodland and fields provided them with entertainment and joy and the seasons were not just printed notations on a calendar, but important dates that determined their livelihood; when to sow and when to gather.
This little house along the bayou is small with wooden clapboards that are painted ochre and there aren’t any windows, at least none that I could see. There is only a screened door that was always opened in summer and closed securely in winter. Beginning in November, I would see small bunches of kindling that someone had gathered and put near the door. All through the winter, the little chimney that sat exactly in the middle of the tin roof would blow puffs of smoke while the little house was bundled tightly and stood against the coldest days of January. I imagined the people inside were in touch with the seasons and seemed to live like they had always lived, without negotiation and surrender to this modern world. I think they must have decided to live in harmony with Nature and to be as one with their environment and they would do this until they would die.
All that happened here appeared so uncomplicated and wonderful. The people in this little house seemed to take only what they needed and were gentle with the Earth and thankful for it’s’ bounty. On most days the clothes were hung to dry with much care and old wooden pins and a line that had been there since the beginning. I am certain there was once a garden and perhaps some chickens that lived there along the bayou with this family. I imagine the rich soil that the bayou provided was turned over each season by hand and seeds were started indoors in the cold month of February when the little house was still and quiet except for the north wind blowing and the sounds the animals that ran along the bayou at night looking for food would make. I suspect the seeds were never purchased; they were saved, perhaps in mason jars that sat on opened faced cabinets in the kitchen and were labeled with pieces of paper and taped to the jars; snap beans, summer squash, and cucumber. When the seeds sprouted and the plants were hardened, I think the old man would set them out in his garden and all summer they would harvest and put away their bounty. And in fall, the rich loom would be turned again and root crops and cabbages would be planted and again the cycle would continue. This is how I imagined it all.
Sadly, the old man has passed away and the old woman has moved away and the little ochre house, I feel sure, will be taken away. For it sits on coveted land along the bayou and I suspect a large modern home will soon be waiting to take its place. No more will I see how life was when Nature was there directing the day and simplicity and conservation was a natural part of southern living.