Tag Archives: North America

How to Decorate Your Home With Houseplants That Clean The Air

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If you are worried about Dirty House Syndrome (indoor pollution in your home) you don’t have to worry about buying an air cleaner. Mother Nature already produces her own natural air cleaners – houseplants. Some houseplants are very efficient at removing all kinds of toxins from the air including the formaldehyde fumes that are emitted from new carpeting. If you burn a lot of essential oils and are worried about the residual carbons that can linger in the air afterwards then air-cleaning houseplants might be in order.

Indoor air pollution is considered by many experts to be one of the main threats to health in the twenty first century. People are getting ill in what are called “sick buildings”. To make matters even worse, statistics show that most North Americans spend 90% of their entire life indoors in buildings that may be off gassing chemicals and particulates.

Many palms and tropical plants naturally purify the air. Among the two most effective are the Areca Palm (Chrysalidocarpus lutescens), the Dwarf Date Palm (Phoenix roebelenii). Plants from the Ficus family are also pretty air purifiers and include the Rubber Plant (Ficus elastica) and the Weeping Fig.

The Lady Palm is also excellent for removing chemical vapors and it is every easy to take care of. The Bamboo palm is top rated by NASA for removing benzene, formaldehyde and trichloroethylene from the air. with its attractive, broad shiny leaves survives in less light then most houseplants from the ficus family. It can also survive cooler temperatures (down to forty degrees.) It is very easy to grow and known for its ability to effectively remove all of the types of toxins but particularly formaldehyde from the air.

This is a beautiful South American plant that produces beautiful white shell shaped flowers called spathes. The plant sends up stiff white spathes and can reach a height of two to three feet. It excels when it comes to removing alcohols, acetone, trichloroethylene, benzene and formaldehyde from the air.
\In the fern family, which is probably the least expensive, the top three air cleaners English Ivy, the Australian Sword Fern and the Boston fern. Other assorted plants that combat indoor air pollution are Posths (Epipremnum aureum), any of the many varieties of Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum) and English Ivy. Just a note here about English Ivy – it is also used to draw prosperity into a home if you are into gathering lucky plants that also clean the air.

Decorating With Western Style Feng Shui

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One of the reasons that some people are reluctant to practice Feng Shui is because a lot of the “cures” and decorating tips in Feng Shui are a bit too Chinese looking for this culture. You don’t want your place to look like the lobby of a Chinese restaurant!

Thankfully there are equivalents in our culture that you can use that will bring you the same type of good fortune without looking too ethnic.

For instance it is a Feng Shui tradition to decorate with plastic or silk flowers in order to attract love and good energy into the home. To make this more contemporary looking use live flowers instead and choose modern looking vases instead of the red or green ceramic vases favored by Chinese Feng Shui enthusiasts. You can also use vases that have eight sides to attract good fortune as well.

The color red is lucky in Feng Shui but you can use different shades of it as accents all over your house. For instance to attract fame into your life you can just paint one South wall red and leave it at that. You can also use red light bulbs, which symbolize fire to light up the appropriate corners to attract love.

Pairs of ducks are used in Feng Shui to attract love. Traditionally a wooden pair would be placed somewhere in the home. You can find a more elegant answer in a work of art or you can be quite funky and use rubber ducks instead. Placing two happy looking yellow ducks in the southeast corner of your bathroom can help attract a love to you.

All things in pairs are said to strengthen the love and relationship vibe in your life. If you do not like the obvious look of some of the Feng Shui statues then consider hanging pictures of flowers that contain two buds in the Southeast corner of your home to attract love. Yet another idea is to hang pictures of birds. In your kitchen consider salt and pepper shakers that are figurines to you. Pairs of things symbolize love.

Copper vessels are used in Feng Shui to attract love. Hanging anything copper on your kitchen walls, including pots, pans and molds will help.

A remedy for bad luck in Feng Shui is to hang wooden flutes from the ceiling or from a beam that might be causing negative energy to prevail. However if you do not like the look of wooden flutes you can use any type of musical instrument that is hollow and makes noise instead.

You might find aquariums full of fish or fountains too fussy to deal with in your modern life. If that is the case then try putting lava lamps in place instead. Lava lamps symbolize the water element!

Remember that any time you want to use a lucky Asian symbol that there is probably a North American equivalent for it in art!