How To Choose The Best Bedroom Color Scheme

Maybe you have moved into a new home. Maybe you feel that it’s time for a change. Or maybe you just think that it would be a fun thing to do.

Maybe you have happily gone about exploring the best color schemes for your bedroom and have even went down to the paint store to see what they have.

Then, it struck you.

What would feng shui have to say about colors for the bedroom?

Two polarizing feng shui camps

There are basically two extreme ends to the spectrum of choosing colors for a living space, whether it’s for the living room or bedroom.

At one end are the advocates that colors have no part to play in feng shui. On the other end of the stick are those that believe each and every color represents a particular element, and the relationship of the 5 elements should therefore be taken into account when choosing color themes.

This difference in opinion can sometimes be so flammable that a simple debate about it can send sparks to trigger an explosion of arguments.

I can only say that forms and real elements play the most prominent role in feng shui enhancement and exhaustion.

But colors play a secondary role, behind the first priority.

So it does play a role in feng shui, albeit to a lesser extent compared to forms and actual natural elements.

Because if you are of the opinion that colors don’t have any effect on feng shui, then go paint your bedroom walls black and see where your mental health heads after sleeping there for a month. Better yet, go with black and red to ignite the age-old confrontation between water and fire.

So colors of a bedroom do have feng shui connotations… which is what we are here to discuss today.

And if you still reject that notion, then you can skip this topic. You can read our rules of bed placement here where we talk about forms.

3 Approaches to choosing bedroom color

In the selection of bedroom colors, there are 3 popular concepts to identify the best color schemes.

• The bagua approach
• The bazi approach
• The elemental approach

While going with either one of them is sufficient, it’s unlikely but not impossible to select a dominant color that hits the sweet spot of all three approaches.

Bagua approach

The bagua approach concerns identifying which directional sector of the premises the bedroom in question is located in.

Because each bagua directional sector of the the house is associated with trigrams and elements, the choice of colors has to be one that enhances the elemental energy that is already present in that room.

Either that, or it should at least be in harmony instead of being in conflict with the resident energy.

For example, the west is associated with the metal element. This means that earth colors like yellow and metal colors like white would keep the resident metal energy charged. While water colors like blue don’t act as enhancers for this sector, it’s in harmony with metal energy. Avoid conflicting colors that represent fire like red or wood colors like green that clashes with metal.

To make it simple for you, here is a table that list bedrooms in different sectors of the house, and their favorable and unfavorable colors.

Identify the directional sector of your bedroom, and with reference to this table, see what elements are enhancers or harmonizers. Then use the feng shui color chart to find out what colors those elements can be represented by.

There would be a lot of options to choose from.

Bazi approach

The bazi approach is about discovering your personal self-element, or that of an individual in question, and identify what are the favorable elements with regards to the 4 pillars. Then colors that represent the favorable elements can be used for the walls and furnishing of the bedroom.

If you don’t know what is your self element, you can easily plot your bazi using this guide and find your self-element.

So for example, if a person has the earth self element, water would represent his wealth. So a bedroom designed with a blue color theme would call on that aspect of life. He can go all out and even install blue curtains and bedsheets. This is assuming water is a favorable elemental character in his bazi.

But like the polarizing camps that was mentioned earlier, a lot of bazi experts actually reject the notion that colors have anything to do with elements and bazi.

I of course, have my own opinions on this. And it’s somewhere between the two.

I would just want to encourage you to form your own opinion on this issue instead of reading something written or taught by one feng shui master and takes his/her word as the definitive answer. Go to the source of feng shui material if you have to.

The zodiac method of picking bedroom colors is also partly extracted from the bazi method.

The difference between the two is that the bazi method uses the day stem as the focal point. While the zodiac method uses the year branch as the focal point.

This is why using this method, zodiacs are grouped into elements, and after identifying your zodiac, favorable colors are those that represent elements that enhance them.

The basic elements that represent zodiac signs can be observed in the 24 mountains.

So if you have the Rooster zodiac for example, then a bedroom color dominated by metal like white would be acceptable without invoking a clash of the elements.

Elemental approach

This is the most simple feng shui approach that can be used by homeowners that requires the least knowledge of zodiacs, bazi or feng shui.

You basically pick any color scheme or style you want… but ensure that the dominant colors do not ignite a conflict between elements.

This means that if there is a dominant earth color like orange, then it must not be accompanied by a secondary dominant color of water element like black or wood element like brown.

This concept comes from the rules of the 5 elements.

For easy reference, here is a table of the 5 elements and the elements they are in conflict with.

The gist of this is that if you are able to avoid primary colors that clash with each other, then the colors you select would be in harmony.

For example, let’s say that you have decided to use a color combination of dark brown and white. The former represents earth element and the latter represents metal element. These two elements are in harmony and would be find from a feng shui perspective.

Finally, there is one rule of room colors that applies to all living spaces to keep in mind.

And that is that the color of the ceiling should be of a lighter tone than the walls and overall color scheme of the room furnishing.

This is because the space above represents heaven and the floor space represents earth. Heaven should be “lighter” than earth.

Have fun with designing your bedroom.