CHI

So we live in a tiny apartment.  It amazes me though how different arrangements can make it seem so much more livable.  I've been kind of interested in the idea of Feng Shui the last couple of years.  Basically Feng Shui is the idea that you want the energy (the chi) to be able to flow freely through the space.  Now I don't necessarily know what I think of the energy thing, but I do think it really makes a difference on how a room is organized and what kinds of items and colors you have surrounding you. Here's a website I started with, if you want to check it out: http://hubpages.com/hub/feng-shui-apartment.  It has more links to other websites as well.  Basically you want your life to be balanced.  So you want balanced furniture on all the sides of a room and calm vs passionate colors, and the areas of the house separated.  For example you want your desk to be in the knowledge area, surrounded by books, not by other distracting clutter.  Getting rid of clutter is a large part of this, which is really hard to do when you live in such a small apartment. 

Anyway, its kind of fun to think about how things are arranged.  Plus I like rearranging.  Not everything is feasible for us, but little things help.  We have a tapestry separating our "bedroom" from the rest of the apartment, and an area rug denotes where the living room is, the t.v. is at an angle because corners supposedly resemble a knife or pointing finger which are bad. We've been a little less of a mess the last month too which is good.