Pumping up your health

In Feng Shui, your Family & Health area is in the East. Green is the color of this quadrant, and the element is Wood. If you really want to pump things up, add the color green, and live plants. I painted my home office the color above, which is Benjamin Moore "Bunker Hill Green". The name of the color is just as important as the color itself. Bunker Hill is in Boston, my hometown. Since I live in California now, it gives me a little piece of home to have an "East Coast color" in my house. 

You should also be mindful of what is going on in the East quadrant of your house. If you have a fireplace, fire burns wood (the element of Health), so you are figuratively "burning your health". The cure? Add water. Water nourishes wood. So, adding fountains on either side of your fireplace would help. So would painting the room blue, which occurs as water in Feng Shui.

If you have dead plants in your Health area, I probably don't have to tell you this is not ideal. An abundance of the color red is also inadvisable. Red is fire, and fire burns wood. These details may sound strange, but they all add up to the overall feeling of balance in your home. 

Pets are wonderful Feng Shui!

You've probably suspected it all along. Your pets are great Feng Shui. They are like little balls of chi running around your house, spreading joy and love. Pets help circulate the energy in your house. Of course you should not get a pet JUST to improve your Feng Shui. A pet is lifetime commitment, and you should only get one if you love animals, and are prepared to treat your pet properly and take care of it for life.

If you live alone, a pet can keep you from feeling lonely. Plenty of studies have shown that the introduction of pets into nursing homes and hospitals improves patient morale and even physical aspects. Dogs are especially good at getting their owners to exercise, since they need to be walked. Cats are natural absorbers of negative energy. They almost protect us from ourselves. My cat Nordie jumps between us when she hears raised voices. She's very brave, and cannot tolerate arguments.

Dogs, cats, birds, goldfish and basically any living thing (within reason) will bring good energy into your home. If you feel that it's time for a new addition to your family, may we suggest Petfinder.com.

How to Get Floor Plans of Your House

Courtesy of William A. Swan, eHow Contributing Writer

There are many times when someone who purchased an existing house will want to do renovations to it, and having the floor plans can help when making repairs or doing new construction. Unfortunately, these floor plans are often not available. But, with some time and effort, you can locate or recreate the floor plan for your house.

Instructions

1. Locate the archives of the municipality or county where your house is located. The tax office usually has an archive section. If not, employees of the tax office might be able to help you locate the person in charge of the archives. The archives will have information about the original deed, owner, building permits and possibly a set of blueprints. If the floor plan is not there, proceed to the next step.
   
   
2. Locate the fire insurance maps for the community. You can also find these at your local city or town hall. Many of these maps date back to the late 1800s. The maps can indicate the construction material used and include a three-dimensional drawing of the neighborhood in which your home is located. With these, you could determine the frame of the structure and where old windows or doorways were. If you need more help, proceed to the next step.
   
   
3. Find your local building inspector's office. If it is not in the city or town hall, the clerks should be able to tell you where to find the building inspector. Builders usually apply for a permit before building houses. Permits, along with floor plans and elevation levels, are located at the building inspector's office. While these permits might not be as old as your house, they can give you details about the floor plan up to the last 20 years. If you still need more detail, continue down the list.
   
   
4. Browse through historical plan books. These are useful if the house was built in the early 20th century. Many homes built during that time period started from floor plans or kits bought from stock plan books or Sears, Roebuck mail-order kits. The next step provides more information about this.
   
   
5. During the latter part of the 20th century, many floor plans and home designs were advertisements in newspapers and home magazines. You can find many of these home plans through library archives or the Internet. This type of advertising was common from the '70s through the mid '90s.
   
   
6. Speak with neighbors. Often, if you look around your neighborhood, you will notice that your house is similar to others in the area. Someone with a similar house design might have a floor plan or information on where to get one. Levittown, New York and sections of Amityville, New York are good examples of this. If this does not work, you still have one more step to try.
   
   
7. Hire an expert in the housing industry. The person will most often be an architect or structural engineer who can use a set of field measurements and other clues to recreate a floor plan for your house.

Good Luck!

Feng Shui alters Bay Area city's rules for addresses

Developers worry residences' digits may clash with ancient beliefs about good and bad luck.

By The Associated Press, Found on democraticunderground.com

HAYWARD, CA -- Developers looking to maximize the marketability of their homes are complaining about the city's street address rules, which they say can scare off buyers who practice the ancient Chinese art of feng shui.

Under a numbering system established by Alameda County in the 1950s, addresses are assigned based on how far the homes are from downtown Oakland, a method that puts five digits on almost every mailbox in Hayward and other cities in the county. Home builders recently raised concerns that they may decrease property values because the odds are greater that an address will carry a number considered unlucky by feng shui practitioners.

City Council members voted unanimously last week to allow the builders of an upscale development to use shorter street numbers. In seeking the waiver, the builders cited convenience concerns as well as the potential for violating feng shui precepts, according to Richard Patenaude, a Hayward city planner.