Feng Shui Problem Resolved

MY SISTER ASKED ME A COGENT QUESTION THIS EVENING: “So how did you solve your feng shui problem in the bedroom?” Oh, that! I guess I owe her, and y’all, an explanation.

Taking to heart the sage advice of MazeDancer, Katy Allgeyer, and others on this blog, I moved the bed yet again, so it’s back in the niche, below, and out from under the oppressive ceiling beam. Truth to tell, the night before I moved the bed, I slept on the living room couch. I actually felt the pressure of the beam bearing down on my body and simply couldn’t spend another night there. Maybe it was suggestion, maybe imagination, maybe fear of forces unknown….at any rate, since I moved the bed, I’ve slept like an effing log.

I’ve added a white wool shag rug from IKEA and window blinds from Pearl River. With the new credenza for my office supplies, and the velvet-upholstered chair, top, I won a couple of years ago as a door prize at a Metropolitan Home magazine party, the room is getting quite comfortable. Especially when compared to the stark “before” of two scant months ago, below.

Feng Shui Nightmare in a Brownstone Bedroom

THE BEDROOM IN MY PROSPECT HEIGHTS PIED-A-TERRE is finally coming together. Last week I committed myself to a 1960s platform credenza, above, for storing my family’s photo archive, a more attractive repository than the half-dozen plastic bins in which our photos and personal memorabilia had been sitting (see below – yikes).

After much shopping around, I bought the credenza at Re-Pop near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. My penultimate stop was Baxter & Liebchen in DUMBO, a warehouse specializing in designer-name Scandinavian modern, mostly teak. Gorgeous stuff, but I didn’t want to spend four figures. So I ended up back at Re-Pop, where I chose a 78″ long piece by the American furniture company Kroehler, with a geometric raised pattern on the front, paying just under $500. It was delivered last Friday (in a snowstorm, naturally).

But then came the placement question. My bedroom — the back room of the garden floor of a brownstone — is huge, about 300 square feet, but oddly shaped, with several nooks and niches. I had originally intended the credenza to go in the niche next to the closet, where it would fit snugly. But the queen size bed had been tucked in there, above, and in order to put the [extremely heavy] credenza in that  niche, where I knew it would look good, I would have to move the bed to the only possible other wall, since the others are either not long enough or have doors on them (one to the living room, one to the garden).

In the meantime, I had the movers put the credenza temporarily along that other wall, above, where it looked lost in space.

The main problem — and I’m not kidding about this — is that there’s a massive ceiling beam running across the room — a wide, heavy I-beam, above — that would bisect the bed, lengthwise, along that only possible other wall. Ceiling beams above the bed, according to my internet research, are nothing less than a feng shui nightmare. “Beams carry a tremendous load,” says one much-reproduced tract, “and this pressure is focused into the beams generating chi which continues downwards, placing direct pressure on you while you sleep.” This can be debilitating and cause physical problems, says Denise Lynn in Sacred Space: Clearing and Enhancing the Energy of Your Home, one of the feng shui reference books I plucked off my shelf. Terrifying, isn’t it?

What to do, what to do? Fortunately, there are some recommended ‘cures’:

• paint the beams (the beam is already painted, whew)
• drape fabric over the beams (I’m not going for a harem look, really)
• hang bamboo flutes 2-3 inches below the beam at a 45-degree angle,with the mouthpiece downwards, to “soften the load”

I went on to read more feng shui advice for the bedroom:

• place your bed in “the king’s position”where you can see the doorway (I can see one of the two)
• don’t place your headboard on the same wall as the incoming door to your bedroom (same wall, different plane, because the wall jogs – don’t know if that’s a mitigating factor)
• make sure when you lay in bed that you can see the incoming flow of energy when someone enters your bedroom (no one is entering my bedroom unless I know about it) — otherwise, you will miss new opportunities in your career or that great partner that you wanted to meet, because you don’t “see” the energy at night coming to you (guess I’ll have to take my chances) and you won’t be in control of your life (who is?)
• if you can’t change your bed to another wall, place a small mirror opposite the door so that when you open your eyes you can see the doorway in the mirror (that I can and will do, pronto)

A Brooklyn brownstone doesn’t lend itself naturally to feng shui principles, I’ve decided. Yesterday I took it upon myself, with the help of plastic coasters as sliders, a couple of bathmats, and sheer determination, to move the credenza into the desired niche, and the bed to the wall under the ceiling beam, above, where I slept very well last night, thank you.

Still, anyone know where I can get some bamboo flutes?

Independence Day Porch Makeover

THE 4th OF JULY found me on Shelter Island, chillin’ in 100 degree heat at my friend Debre’s extraordinary Carpenter Gothic farmhouse.

Somewhere between the Jamesport Vineyards sauvignon blanc and the Wolffer Estate rose (we like to support our local wineries), we decided to re-arrange furniture. We were sitting on the wraparound screened porch, which Debre added, along with new bathrooms and many other upgrades, since buying the house about three years ago.

There was no shortage of furniture to re-arrange. Debre is an avid yard-saler, and the porch — a U shape, 8-10′ wide around three sides of the house — is well stocked with vintage wicker sofas and chairs, a sectional rattan set, and various occasional tables. Our re-decorating frenzy began because there was a carved wood 19th century mantelpiece, originally out of a house in Harlem, behind one of the wicker sofas. Only I never knew that, since it had been hidden under a dusty plastic drop cloth since my first visit to the house over a year ago.

We pulled the plastic off so that I could see the mantelpiece, and discussed various possible placements for it. We decided there really isn’t any place for it in the house, style- or space-wise (the mantel is for sale, therefore; e-mail caramia447[at]gmail[dot]com for more pics and details.)

Then we started moving stuff around for the hell of it, switching out some of the wicker, top, for more modern rattan, below, in one corner of the porch, then styling it up with fronds cut from a stand of bamboo in the yard.

It’s not really a matter of ‘before’ and ‘after’ — just different. We both have interior design backgrounds, and this sort of thing is our idea of fun. Debre’s three cats seem to like the results, too.

To see still more pictures of Debre’s house (in addition to the link at the top of this post), go here.

Use What You’ve Got

EAST HAMPTON AFTER

LAST FRIDAY I HAD LUNCH with Allegra Dioguardi, a longtime professional home stager (though she prefers the term ‘interior merchandising’) who calls her business Styled and Sold. We found we had much in common. We agreed that feng shui is essentially good design principles, that color is key, and cleanliness is next to godliness, especially when you’re trying to sell a house.

We both studied interior design at Parsons in New York; Allegra went on to design model homes on Long Island and spent 22 years in Maryland, building a home staging business and working with realtors and homeowners to ready properties for sale. Now she’s back on the Island, living in Sag Harbor. She has developed a training program for aspiring home stagers, wrote an e-book on the subject, and blogs at this industry site.

Both of us know — she from long experience, me from anecdotal evidence and common sense — how a professional’s fresh eye can speed up a sale and bring a better price (Allegra sold her own house in Maryland to the first person who showed up), especially in a market that’s fairly flooded with properties.

EAST HAMPTON BEFORE

Recently she added two-hour consultations with homeowners to her roster of services (her fee is $300). In the living room of the East Hampton house pictured at the top of this post (left, the miserable ‘before’), Allegra rearranged furniture for better function and flow, suggested painting the dark brick white, re-hung a ‘mish-mash’ of art to create stronger focal points, and generally de-cluttered. Not one thing was purchased anew, except a potted plant or two.

Allegra’s m.o. is to walk through the house with the client and have them take notes. All the while, she’s moving furniture, taking art off the walls and repositioning it, and making a pile of stuff to go into storage. In the case of the East Hampton house, the client called her handyman during the consultation to come over and help. “That was a first!”Allegra says. She then photographs the house and sends the client a list of additional suggestions.

There have been many times I’ve craved someone to come in and do just that, even when I’m not selling.

WESTHAMPTON BEFORE

When Allegra works with realtors, she’s frequently dealing with a property that has been emptied out.

Here’s how she staged a Westhampton living room, right and below, in a house intended for summer rental, from scratch.

WESTHAMPTON AFTER

Below, see how Allegra freshened up a kitchen to prepare a house for market, with new appliances, granite countertops recycled from another job, affordable cork flooring, and lots of white paint on the existing cabinets.

KITCHEN BEFORE

KITCHEN AFTER

Contract Remorse

THIS WEEK I went to contract on a 1940s shingled cottage in Springs (or is it “the” Springs? I guess I’ll find out). It’s a hamlet a few miles north of East Hampton, on Long Island’s South Fork. I should be celebrating, right? Instead I’m worrying.

The seller took two weeks to return the contracts with her signature, after I had scraped together my down payment and sent my signed contracts to her attorney. As the days passed, I began to think she had changed her mind about selling (even though the house was on the market for almost a year before I came along), or had gotten a better offer. I decided that wouldn’t be so terrible, and began to feel relieved.

—————————————————————-  Then yesterday I got word that the seller’s contracts were signed. Now I have to start worrying in earnest. Not about getting a mortgage. That’s looking good at 5.375%.

 

 

Here’s a sampling of things I’m worried about:

• The location. Will I like Springs? I’d never even been there before the January day I saw this house. I wasn’t even looking on the South Fork. I was on my way to the North Fork.
• The garden. It’s neglected and overgrown. The garage was smashed to bits by an errant branch of a giant cherry tree and needs to be hauled away. There are lots of broken trees that need to be professionally dealt with. How bad will the deer be?
• The money. Will it over-stretch me? Will I be able to rent it this summer? Will I be able to rent it in the off-season if I need to? Will I ever be able to use it myself?

Now you’re thinking, Fool! Why did she sign that contract?!

OK. Here’s what’s good about it:

• The house itself. Of all the houses I looked at, and I had been ISO my next property for about a year, it felt the most “right.” Something I could handle, space with good feng shui, a potentially wonderful gardening property
• The location. Despite the busy-ish road, the property has a feeling of seclusion. It’s backed by undeveloped Town land, virgin Long Island oak forest. It feels very country, yet it’s a short walk to a gorgeous bay beach (Maidstone, bottom) and a 10 minute drive to the ocean. It’s near Jackson Pollock’s and Lee Krasner’s home and studio, which is cool.
• The property. Nothing compared to the mountainside you could get in the Catskills for the same money, but in terms of 20’x100′ Brooklyn brownstone lots: more than EIGHT of ’em.
• The money. Having done all that house-hunting, I think I’m getting a good deal at 320K (the house appraised at 400K; does that count as equity yet?)

Beyond all that, I’ll have fun fixing the place up, and it doesn’t really require that much. And I’m gonna LOVE the garden – working in it, sitting in it, looking at it.

At this point, I don’t have much choice except to close my eyes and jump, and hope everything turns out all right.