Feng Shui Tips For Choosing The Right Color Wallpaper For Your Space

It's undeniable that a space's layout, décor, and colors affect mood and energy. Simply choosing pieces you love and colors that positively affect you is enough to impact your interiors. Still, for thousands of years, people have been practicing the art of feng shui as a more regimented way to ensure their spaces look and feel comfortable. First developed in China over 4,000 years ago, this practice seeks to balance yin and yang elements to promote the flow of positive chi, or energy, in a room, via National Geographic.

Feng shui involves everything from furniture placement to the use of specific materials, but one of the easiest ways to get started and encourage balance is through the use of color. Color can significantly impact everything from anxiety to productivity, so choosing the right wallpaper to spruce up your home is an important task that can have beneficial or harmful effects.

The art of feng shui is based on five core elements — earth, wood, fire, metal, and water — and the layout of your home can help you determine what element you should focus on in each area. In classical feng shui, you overlay an octagonal bagua, a map that determines the energy and focus of each room, over a mockup of your home's layout. After you select the proper directional orientation, each space will fall into one of the nine areas on the bagua and serve as a guide for the desired energy, via Love to Know.

For a more basic approach, you can also use a black hat feng shui bagua, which consists of a more straightforward grid pattern and doesn't involve more precise directional calculation. This method is more common in western culture and serves as a solid starting point if you want to improve the energetic flow of your home without having to do more detailed research.

After you determine the element and desired energy of each room in your home, the rest of the process is pretty simple. Each element has a corresponding color palette, primarily neutral tones, that you can factor into your wallpaper choices. The related colors are just what you'd expect — water is blue, fire is red and orange, the earth is muted browns and beige, wood is green, and metal is gray and black.

All of these colors draw inspiration from nature, so if you want to remain true to the practice, it's best to choose something more relaxing and muted. With that being said, however, your choices don't have to be boring. When picking your wallpaper, use the color palette as a general guide, then find an option that still speaks to your personal style. It's easy to get swept up in the rules of feng shui, but you'll feel the benefits the most if you design a space that aligns with your taste above all else.

If you have difficulty deciding on a pattern, you can use your room's element to give you some guidance there, too. For a literal approach, find a wallpaper that directly corresponds to your element, like subtle grain patterns for wood or splashes of foil for metal. You can also go a bit more metaphorical in your interpretation, trying out something like flowing florals for water or organic, muddy textures for earth. 

Across the board, patterns that mimic nature will likely be your best bet in following the rules of feng shui and guaranteeing that you'll still love the wallpaper you chose a few years down the line. It's important to note that this entire practice is based on balance. Even a bold, bright option can work as an accent in your space as long as you create a sense of equilibrium with your other furniture, décor, and layout choices.