Home Guru: ‘Feng Shui’ed’ Anew, Not Without Some Trepidation

June 16, 2015 Examiner Media Home Guru

By Bill Primavera – After a year of great upheaval in my personal and professional domains, having moved to a new residence and expanded space in my office building, I was feeling off kilter. I was a little uncomfortable in my own skin, not sleeping well and working in a tangle of misplaced folders, temporary filing boxes and a jumble of crossed wires.

Six months ago, I moved from my large historic property that for over 40 years had housed my public relations business and domicile to make way for an ever-expanding enterprise after my wife had declared “Enough! I’ve lived ‘above the store’ my entire married life and now I’m living inside the store!”

That’s when we purchased a new residence at Trump Park in Shrub Oak, which we’ve been decorating madly, while at our historic property we converted our former living quarters into new offices.

The transition has involved a massive displacement of furnishings and fixtures and the addition of new office equipment to accommodate a doubling of staff, all of which had left me in a state of anxiety.

Perhaps it was not totally accidental that I received a call from the fabulous Deanna Trust, feng shui consultant extraordinaire, about whom I had done a column a while back. The universe has responded to my need to be “feng shui’ed” at home and at the office to make sure that I hadn’t bollixed my environments with all this moving.

“Come visit me fast, at both places,” I implored. “I need to get organized for a feeling of calm.”

Within the month she arrived and I had my video production crew on hand to record the process. There was one terrible snag, which I hadn’t anticipated: my wife Margaret.

I should explain that a happy marriage of nearly a half-century can be built on the attraction of opposites, and my wife doesn’t go for this kind of stuff. When Trust mentioned on the phone the night before that she would be bringing many crystals to “paste to the ceiling” of our new home to energize it, I was able to say with full confidence that, knowing my wife, that wasn’t going to happen. We agreed that we could work around this issue and I promised that at my office she could plaster the entire ceiling with crystals, like stalactites in a cave, if she liked.

At home, as soon as Trust entered the front door, she told me that the residence was “stable, a happy place, well-designed for good fortune and happiness.”

While Donald Trump didn’t actually build the building – that honor goes to Louis Cappelli — he did attach his name to it, and since he has a feng shui consultant for every one of his projects, I’m sure he wouldn’t have allowed that unless he were fully confident that the place represented him well.

Trust cleansed and blessed my home quickly, feeling that I had pretty much followed pointers she had given me from a consultation a year earlier. I had made some errors in my bedroom with too much “water” representation in my seascape paintings — six of them — which have to be replaced in favor of “action” representation. There were other minor tweaks, like having plants in two corners to stimulate good fortune and growth, but nothing that Margaret would consider too weird.

It was then on to the office building where I admitted unabashedly that I want to soar with success. After three hours I was exhausted. There was the creation of an altar, then the most exacting interpretation of each room from our reception area, to my manager’s office, other offices, a conference room, my office and the kitchen. There was rearrangement of wall art, wall color suggestions, and a biggie, my office chair, which was not commanding enough it seems. It was suggested that I need a chair that comes up high enough to cover the back of my head. Wouldn’t you know, I had just bought an expensive one that didn’t have that feature.

There were also loads of crystals to be added in every room, some hanging directly from the ceiling — one directly at the entrance — others in corners and some from chandeliers. Certainly prospective clients may wonder about that and ask whether I really believe in it all. I guess I’m like those who say they decide to live a good life not knowing whether there’s a heaven or hell, but just in case…

If you feel you want to improve your chances at happiness, good fortune and better health, call Deanna Trust at 973-366-3570 or visit www.trustfengshui.com.

Bill Primavera is a Realtor® associated with William Raveis Real Estate and Founder of Primavera Public Relations, Inc., the longest running public relations agency in Westchester (www.PrimaveraPR.com). His real estate site is: www.PrimaveraRealEstate.com and his blog is: www.TheHomeGuru.com. To engage the services of The Home Guru and his team to market your home for sale, call 914-522-2076.