Rhea is a featured speaker at the BC Fall Home Show, presenting Western Feng Shui introductions and demonstrations. She was featured on the cover of the Vancouver Sun newspaper’s October 13 2000 edition in an article by Susan Balcom.
Click here for more information about the BC Fall Home Show.
A new harmony at the Home Show
By Susan Balcom
The Vancouver Sun, Friday, October 13, 2000
The amazing thing about feng shui, says Vancouver practicioner Rhea Peake, is that the ancient Chinese theory of design is as much about common sense as superstition.
Think about it.
Does it make sense, at work, to sit with your back to the door so you have to twist around every time someone walks into your office?
Does it make sense, at home, to paint your bedroom blue when what you’re trying to create is a place that’s warm and cosy for sleeping?
“Feng shui is not just a chinese cultural tool,” says Peake, who is speaking at this year’s B.C. Fall Home Show. “All the ancient peoples documented how the energies on the earth work and how best to align ourselves.”
This year’s fall home show, on now through Sunday at B.C. Place Stadium, is diverging a little from its traditional focus on renovation and decor by inviting Peake, who obviously has an alternative view of interior design. Most other presenters are familiar names to showgoers: Jane Lockheart, of HGTV’s One House, Two Looks and her partner Mary Dobson; Shell Busey, host of a popular home improvement show on radio; and Fred & Gerry, “The Home Improvement Guys”, to mention just a few.
Peake, who practices a Westernized version of feng shui, often gets rather bizarre calls for help, like the one from a woman who thought her house was haunted.
When she visited the home, Peake noticed that the woman had faux finished her hallway in white and blue, a lively combination that brought to mind images of rushing water – not a good idea for such a confined space.
“Hallways are spaces where energy is condensed and moving very quickly. When you walked through this hall, you got a white-water effect,” Peake says. “The colours were creating turbulence. When this woman walked by her closet, the hangers would move because the energy was literally bouncing off the walls. It was her own energy, the space and the colouring mixed together.”
The woman is now repainting her hall in earth tones and plans to hang pictures of things she loves to see. As for the metal hangers, so far they’re keeping quiet.
Even if your house isn’t haunted, there’s a lot to be gained by following basic feng shui guidelines, Peake says. If you wish your life was better – the first step to actually living that way is to create the environment. “Think of your house as a movie set. If you watch a television show and the set doesn’t reinforce the images that they’re trying to portray, we don’t believe it. We have to do the same thing with our own personal spaces.”
* To help set a romantic mood in the bedroom, paint the walls in colours that have a warm, human quality. Think of the variety in flesh tones, shades ranging from pink to golden tan.
* To ensure a good night’s sleep, make sure the head of your bed is against a solid wall, not underneath a window where energy will be drawn away from the body.
* Round tables cause energy to move around and spin off quickly, so they work best in small spaces like kitchen nooks. If you want guests to linger over dinner, use a square or rectangular table which gives each person a ‘grounding’ or horizon.
* If you want your employees to be happy, do away with cubicles that have only one opening and where the person has to turn in the same direction every time someone walks by.
“When I go into offices, those people tell me every time they have all kinds of neck problems and back problems,” Peake says. “People will not stay long in a job where they work in cubicles. It’s literally a pain in the neck.”
* Remove clutter to create an environment with as little stress as possible. “If you clear away the clutter and only have things you love, you can’t help but have a loving life because nothing stands between you and what you love,” Peake says.
Rhea is scheduled to speak at the Bring it All Home Stage at the B.C. Fall Home Show at noon and 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday.
DecoRhea Design 