Feng Shui Tips on Where to Hang Pictures

The ancient Chinese art of feng shui aims to bring harmony, balance and positive energy flow to a home through the specific placement of objects. Feng shui's principles apply to everything from choosing a building lot to where to place furniture. You can even use feng shui in hanging pictures in your home or office. By deciding what aspects of life are important to you and choosing artwork appropriate for those concerns, you can enhance your comfort and chances for success.

Map Your Space
Think of the room you want to decorate as having eight sectors: the four compass points and the four corners, the latter representing northeast, northwest, southeast and southeast. In feng shui, this is the principle of BaGua (eight areas). Stand in the center of the room and use a compass to determine where each sector lies. You might want to draw a small map as reference. Each sector relates to a different aspect of your life, and by picking the correct pictures for your room, you can increase the positive energy flowing toward that aspect, whether it is wealth, relationships, career or fame.

The Four Points
The northern side of a room relates to career. Hang pictures of fish, the ocean or other water-related scenes, as well as your own mementos of success, here. The east side governs family and health, so good choices include images of healthy plants or paintings and photos of family members. Fame dominates a room's southern end, making that wall a great spot for placing any award certificates or plaques you have received. If you are decorating a west wall, choose pictures of children or a special piece of art, since this area governs children and creativity.

The Four Corners
The northeast corner, which governs education, is a good spot for hanging your degrees and other educational awards. The northwest corner is all about mentors and bringing helpful people into your life. You can hang photos or pictures of people who have inspired or aided you. The southeast corner deals with wealth and prosperity. You can enhance your positive energy here with pictures of goldfish, which are a Chinese symbol of prosperity, or another symbol of wealth, such as coins. In the southwest corner, marriage is the key, so pictures of happy couples would find a good home here.

Other Considerations
When choosing which pictures to hang and where to place them, think of the areas of your life that are most important to you. In other words, don't try to decorate every spare inch of wall space on the theory that you will maximize your qi, or positive energy. The result can be chaos, confusion and conflict as too many elements compete with one another. Instead, decide on a few judiciously placed pictures and consider adding them one at a time to allow you to test each one's effect on your life.