Decorating in Green

The color green is a powerful tool for home decor. As a species, we evolved reliant on trees and plants for food, medicine, shelter, and even transportation in the earlier stages of our development. Consequently, our brains associate foliage with safety, sustenance, and with a general sense of well being. Our eyes evolved to distinguish between many different shades of green, as each shade correlated with a leaf or vine that was good for something in particular.

Bringing in plenty of green to our decor theme is a sure way to create tranquility. When we surround our selves with greenery, we create a mental oasis to escape to from the harsh desert of stress in our every day lives. We can do this first and foremost with real plants and indoor trees. If your home can not accommodate a real arboretum with a sky light, then large pots will accommodate many species of trees that grow in low light and ambient light conditions. Many of them have broad green leaves that turn any room into a serene garden. You can further enhance the feeling by hanging plants with long tendrils from hooks on the ceiling. When the vegetation grows, both, up from the pots, and down from the hangers, you get a visual balance reminiscent of life in the natural world.

The color green is also representative of the heart chakra, in the Indian understanding of the spiritual body. By adding greens as accent colors to your decor, you support the heart chakra and invite wellness into your relationships to others and to your self.

Ideas for adding green to your room decor abound. You can use bamboo wood floors, mats, and furniture which are available in a subtle green hue. You can chose sage colored carpet or area rugs, conjuring the sense of walking on soft grass, moss, or between medicinal plants in the mountains. A spectrum of greens make a good combination for throw pillows on beds, chairs, and sofas. Khaki makes a good chair upholstery or cushion for a dining room or kitchen chairs, because it is an easy green to keep looking good, even when food has been dropped on it repeatedly. Green grape vine patterns look lovely on drapes, sofa upholstery, carpets, and stenciled on walls and wooden furniture. This is a good way to introduce green with out over doing it. A whole wall in green may be too dark, unless you use a very pale wash.

Sage green goes well with apricot, white, cream, pastel yellow, darker shades of reds that have a touch of blue in them, burgundy, raspberry, lilac, and violet. The versatility of green stems from our love of wild flowers growing in a field, and for that reason allows a multitude of accent colors. Even a touch of sky blue can compliment your green decor, or vise verse.

In Feng Shui, green represents the wood element, and belongs in the zone for family and foundation. It is also useful when placed between other elements that would conflict , like fire and water. For this reason, a green object is often placed between a sink and stove in the kitchen.