Feng Shui & Ambient Lighting, Part One

There is no feng shui reason to draw attention to an ambient light fixture inside or outside. My suggestion is to have super-simple yet elegant ambient light fixtures. Most ambient light fixtures are on the ceiling but some are wall sconces. The simplest shape there is is a globe—think of stars and planets. I recently steered an Oahu client who has high ceilings toward the simple frosted glass pendant globes that have been popular since the 1970’s. She then located some old photos of the house when they first bought it and that was the kind of fixtures that the architect had originally specified. I told her that her house was going to love her. (Yes, it’s possible for a house to love you—see Carole Hyder’s book Conversations with Your Home: Guidance and Inspiration Beyond Feng Shui which I highly recommend. My Oahu client read it and agreed that it was a very good book—powerful.)

As most people know, Frank Lloyd Wright was greatly influenced by Japanese aesthetic. In 1912 he wrote, “…the first and supreme principle of Japanese aesthetics consists in a stringent simplification by elimination of the insignificant.” (I got that quote from Japonisme by Lionel Lambourne.) I wouldn’t want to apply that to every object in my home—nor did Wright apply it in all of his work, but it’s a good thing to remember when selecting ambient lighting.