WHITE ON WHITE: CHI-CHI OR CHILLY?

White Rooms Photo courtesy Apartment Therapy

CLUTTER FREE DOESN’T GUARANTEE
Clutter and dust and dirt block the free flow of ch’i. However, there are circumstances where one can have a spotlessly clean space worthy of the “white gloved lady test” and yet the place feels lifeless. A beautifully decorated home displaying Architectural Digest’s epitome of good taste and refinement does not guarantee the optimum free flow of ch’i, either.

STILLNESS STAGNATES
The term most often applied by Feng Shui practitioners for this type of
situation is “stillness”. You will see descriptions such as “extreme
stillness in artwork”, or, “lack of movement” when you are reading about Feng Shui. When we talk about stillness in artwork, we are not implying that you must discard all of the stationary paintings on your walls and replace with mobiles and moving scultpture. Stillness in artwork encompasses many aspects, that taken individually, or, added to other problems with decor, add up to stale ch’i.

CHILLINGLY STILL
Let’s say you have a very modern white-on-white room with lots of chrome metallic fixtures and the artwork you’ve chosen consists of very stark black and white framed photographs in black or metal frames. I would not be surprised to find the atmosphere in this room to be chillingly still. This creates an atmosphere of stagnant ch’i which in turn can lead to not just blocked opportunities, but adverse health conditions. The reason? The stillness is created by a lack of balance.There is no warmth, no vitality, no breath. It’s all one color: white,which in Feng Shui is equated with metal….so with the chrome accents,you have added metal to metal.

SOLUTIONS
What this room needs is to be balanced with some other elements …wood, green living plants, colorful or textural rugs / pillows / paintings/sculpture. The black and white photographs could be beautiful accents in another room or could improve the sterility of the metallic white room if they were framed with warm wood such as cherry.

Can a white-on-white room be achieved and still be warm and inviting? It would require careful consideration to include the Five Elements and to have a variety of textures and several shades and tones of whites to creams. This is when your decorator needs to call in a Feng Shui consultant. Or add touches of color for oomph and visual warmth as we’ve done here:
The green and purple and the knick-knacks in wood tones help but still more could be done.