Prosperity – the bathroom, pt 3

We can now say of the bathroom ‘we feng shuied it’. Apologies for the quality of the images – but you know, if you’re waiting for good light in London in January, you’ll be waiting a long time. There are a few bits still to be done, I’ll update later. Here’s the run down so far:

Keeping the ch’i in

Yes, I really am photographing the drain of my toilet

Red tape tied round the drains, red nail polish around the bin and the plughole. There are also two little mirrors placed to deflect ch’i back up into the room – one on the floor behind the toilet (that’s what you can see there in the picture), one in the tank.

Under the bathroom basin

Dirt, dust, old and broken items, reminders of bad times
Old medicines (reminders of bad times) have been emptied out of the cabinet, and everything old and out of date moved out of the under-sink cabinet and both given a thorough clean. The bath toys have been sorted and anything broken or just gross (bath crayons crumble after a while, and the little wind-up swimming guy whose arm doesn’t work) has gone. Whole of the rest of the room given a big clean. Broken shaving mirror replaced.

The bottom 4 inches of the shower curtain was kind of gross, so I just cut it off with scissors. It looks fine now. It could use replacing, but will have to wait until the ch’i is flowing a little more freely here. The pattern of the current one is fine, lots of little dots – like bubbles or condensation… or coins.

I did manage to get the limescale out of the toilet bowl and ugh, that is not a job I want to repeat in a hurry. Vinegar, coke – didn’t even touch it. We had to rely on the heavy duty chemicals, and a pumice stone, and eventually a metal scraper. However it is now mostly clean (still a little lurking area right where it disappears round the bend, which I just cannot get to) and I do believe that the cleaning of it has been the best lesson not to let it get into that state again.

Medicine cabinet

Drawing the eyes and attention up, away from the toilet
New pot plant (an African violet, see below) on top of the medicine cabinet replaces the French bath oil bottles which were nice once but had become dusty, greasy and a bit mildewy. I might get a little decorative mirror up here, but money is tight – really tight – this month so let’s let prosperity beget prosperity enhancements. Hear that, ch’i?

Crystal drop

I hung a crystal drop in the window, because it’s pretty and will draw the eye and spread light around the place.

African Violet

Colour
Two new African Violets, in an intense, beautiful deep purple. I could have gone for red or even purple pots, but I backed out and went for white. At least they are square, the right shape for the gua. They were cheaper, and I don’t want to overdo the purple. It has to look like our house, you know?

I looked at the paints, but even a small can of paint is expensive! So I got two little tester pots in a sort of sugared lilac shade – my plan is to paint stripes on the mirror/basin alcove wall. I’ll mask off with tape, and hope I have enough to do the whole thing. I’m not going to get to that for a week or so, I’ll come back and add a pic when it’s done.

Dye job

Dyeing the towels had mixed results. The first batch came out way too dark: the bathmat, which was a very deep claret red, now reads as black – not the effect I was going for. Some of the other towels (which were red or pink) are now basically navy blue. Hopefully they will still work as the intention is there (I know they are really purple, even if they don’t look it!), and maybe they will fade to purple once I have washed them a few times? The second batch I used half the amount of dye and they turned out great. Again, when this prosperity ch’i starts working for us, I will try to pick up some cheap purple bath towels. We have had these ones since forever and they are starting to get really quite threadbare.

bathroom blind

The blind up at the window was an easy fix. Half a metre of fabric was £2.50 on sale at the market, and I just fixed it up with a staple gun. It’s either, staple up an unhemmed piece of fabric, or wait forever for me to get together both the materials and the motivation to do a proper job. I have enough on my plate, I can live with stapled bathroom blinds.

Gilt fish bowl

A last little element is this bowl. I know it’s blue, but look, it’s gilded gold and ‘fish’ means ‘money’ – and fish also speaks to the parable of feeding the 5,000, which is all about abundance. I’ll fill it with something appropriate as soon as the inspiration strikes.

So there it is. The bathroom. Feng shuied it.

Prosperity – the bathroom, pt 2

Feng shui promises that our little bathroom and kitchen, properly ‘cured’ and enhanced, could help us:
• receive unexpected money
• make more money with our businesses
• rent a cottage on a lake in Canada – the summer we dream of
• be philanthropic
• have a stable income
• increase our wealth and enjoy the good things in life
• find inner peace and true happiness with what we have in life.

Sounds good?

The first thing is to do a thorough deep clean, including the cabinet under the basin and the medicine cupboard. Speaking of deep clean, I need to find out how to clean right down inside the lavatory bowl, the part which is always under water, and collects hard water deposits if you’re in London. Blech.

Here’s the stuff to avoid or move out:
• dirt, dust, broken items, reminders of bad times: should be covered off in the top to bottom cleaning (fyi, I’ll be using the cleaning list here)
• bins: we need a bin in the bathroom. Relative to the fact that it’s next to the loo, I’m sure it’s feng shui small beans but whatever, I will happily paint a line of red nail polish around the rim.
• dead plants/fireplaces: both N/A
• toilets: I quote: “Let’s hope there isn’t a toilet in your Prosperity corner.” We can try to address it the enhancements below, and also mirrors (we’re not going to be able to get two facing each other, but I’ll buy a bunch of small pocket mirrors and put one in the tank, a couple on the floor behind the loo. We have the medicine cabinet hanging above the tank with a bold red cross on the front, Swiss flag style, which draws the eye up (you could read it as a plus sign? Mo’ money?) and I’m thinking a cute mirror and maybe another African violet on top of the cabinet would help. I will probably hang a crystal in the window to catch and defract all that sunlight and just be really pretty.

Red tape around the lavatory drain and the basin drain. I can’t get to the bathtub drain, but will do red nail polish round the plughole and might see if I can (when our prosperity improves) pick up a decorative bath plug something like this.

Next up, tools for enhancing the ch’i:
• purple, red, green, gold: I’m not up for a major redecoration of the room, and none of these are a favourite colour. The bathroom has been green before and I remember noticing that the colour cast meant we always looked ill in the bathroom mirror. I think a pale lilac purple might be flattering, so I’ll give some thought to painting the wall of the recessed basin alcove.

The quickest and easiest (and cheapest!) colour enhancement I can come up with is to dye our towels and bathmat. They are mostly bright red, pink and blue, so with a few boxes of blue and red dye they should be easy enough to turn purple. Also, that blind up at the window is just a cut piece of fabric stapled to the window frame – I’ll replace it with a floral print including purple and green.

• moving water: It’s the bathroom. Toilet excepted, it’s all about clean, moving water. I’ll just have to remedy the drains somehow.

• round leaved plants: A little African violet in a purple/red/gold/green pot will do well on that deep window ledge. The blind will keep the burning sun from the south facing window off it. Actually I just remembered, we’ve had phaleonopsis orchids flower there really successfully, so there’s another option.

• moving objects: Pass. We have a bath toy where you pour water in the top and it makes a little water wheel spin round – does that count?

One for me to think on: what can I place in the bathroom that will remind me of wealth and abundance?