Feng Shui your living room

Ornaments and pictures
The most important thing to remember is to surround yourself with decorations that you like. Most people have a mixture of items that they've inherited and pieces that they've chosen themselves. If you like them, keep them, but if they were given to you and aren't to your taste, pass them on or give them to charity. Antiques hold energy from their previous owners and history, so, in order to benefit from them fully, try to find out as much as possible about their history.

Ideally, pictures should be lively, uplifting and attractive. Try to avoid hunting scenes, lonely, windswept landscapes with single figures, or images with sad associations. For best results, match the subject and main colours to the pa kua sector.

Beneficial plants
Broad-leaved plants, such as rubber plants and Swiss cheese plants, are best for stimulating chi. If you don't want to keep real plants, artificial plastic or silk ones are just as good. Pot pourri is helpful because of the smell. However, avoid dried flowers or ornamental twigs in jars because they hold stagnant energy.

Location, location, location
North: Enhance the chi in a northern living room with wood symbols, such as greens and plants, or metal symbols: whites, creams, chrome and stainless steel. To boost your career, try water or symbols of water.

Northeast: The chi here is ideal for recharging your energy. Focus on earth symbols, such as terracotta, apricot or yellow, granite or marble and unglazed pottery. Crystal is also beneficial. Add touches of metal (see North, above). Electrical items can promote knowledge and learning.

East, southeast, south: The chi in eastern and southeastern living rooms will promote growth and 'richness of life'; the south enhances sociability. Use lots of wood symbols, such as the colour green, plants and pictures of countryside or flowers, with yellows and touches of reds. Water symbols in the southeast can help to increase your prosperity.

Southwest: This sector has relaxing energy that nurtures relationships. Blend earth with some metal, as for the northeast (see above).

West, northwest: Living rooms in these sectors can boost energy, determination and creative thinking. The ideal blend of chi is metal, such as whites, creams, and stainless steel, with some earth symbols.

• Feng Shui your kitchen
• Feng Shui your garden
• Feng Shui your bathroom

Extract from The Feng Shui Doctor by Paul Darby, priced £9.99, published by Duncan Baird Publishers.