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Ai's clients share their experiences.
Kana Kamitsubo Markovic (Queens, NY)
Hug Music Owner/Pianist, Music Therapist
I am very satisfied with Ai's feng shui interior consulting service because she really passionately listened to our needs based on our life style.
I asked Ai to rearrange our entrance area and study room of our house, and reception & waiting area of our music school that I run with my husband in Forest Hills, Queens, NY.
There are almost 400 people coming in our school every week, so just making the space comfortable and beautiful was not what we really were looking for; it has to be safe, practical and functional to use for everybody, staff, teachers, students, and their parents .
Ai understood our needs clearly after listening to us very carefully and patiently. In her consultation she gave us lots of useful ideas for both home and school.
Ai gave us suggestions for furniture locations, usage for each areas of home and school, the best way of making them look good and comfortable, based on law of feng shui's ying yang five elements and color theory, which also matched with our taste.
First we worked on our study room. Originally this room was equally divided into our son's space and our office space, in which we put a desk and chair where we could do some administrative work for our school business.
Ai said that this room was located in the direction for the home master (my husband) so she suggested to use this room mainly as a study room for him by minimamizing the kid's area. We moved so much furniture from kid's area to the office area and vise varsa. And what happened was unbelievable... My husband, who used to always like to be with me whenever he did whatever he needed...but now he often spends his time so focused in this newly arranged study room by himself when he needs to do so. Before Ai's consultation, he often did his things in the living room where I am always in for doing my own things, which made me feel I did not have my own space....But now my husband does his things in his study room, so I can spend my own time in the living room. Ai told me that the more he uses his new study room the more opportunities for him where he performs as a front man will come. At first we were kind of skeptical about what she told us...but actually she was right...what she said has been happening in a real life! My husband used to leave most of the business things to me, since I was an original founder of this business so there were so many things that I needed to do, which both of us used to believed that's the best way. But since we had our study room rearranged, it sees that his attitude toward our business has been changed, and I started feeling more comfortable to leave more things on him.
Next we worked on our entrance area.
The first thing Ai pointed out was two Dyson's vacuum cleaners that were located right in front of the entrance door, where we believed had only outlet for them.
However it was not a huge problem to me but even kind of convenient and easy to have vacuum cleaners in the entrance area since I was a person who loved cleaning all day long. But Ai gave me a huge NO to keep the vacuum cleaners there...she told me that I should move them to somewhere else urgently!!! Her explanation why I should not keep them in the entrance area made a lot of sense to me later, so I removed them from the entrance. Ai said entrance area supposed to be the place where we welcome our guests as well as ourselves. Wont's you like to be welcomed by beautiful flowers with beautiful sent and colors rather than Dison's vacuum cleaners? Vacuum cleaners are not the appropriate items for welcoming not only us but also good energy and luck. As soon as she told me, I realized that the entrance area is a face of our home. Soon I removed vacuum cleaners, and replaced the painting art on the wall with brighter colored painting that is more welcoming. I removed family pictures from the entrance and put flowers and green plants and seasonal items instead. At this point, I began loving the entrance area more than before. My focus shifted to making this area more beautiful and welcoming so that our guests, and we ourselves, feel happy when entering home. After this arrangement, I feel our home says " Welcome home!" when we come home with warm hospitality, which made me love my home more than before.
Lastly, let me tell you about out school's reception and waiting area.
I was too busy to work on these area to be practically arranged even though I knew there were many things needed to be improved, since our business became big more quickly than we expected. As we get more students, we tended to prioritize the reception and waiting area to be more spacious rather than its appearance and function.
Ai's careful consultation lead us to improve this area a lot and also made us realize how many unnecessary and unused things in the reception area we had. Nothing but a printer, a PC, a telephone and administrative documents in the files was important there. The reception area was filled with unnecessary things, things that I planed to use but never used, student's lost and found. Ai taught us what to declutter, how to organize things in the reception area, how to utilize dead spaces so that our receptionist and teachers can use this area more functionally. After following her direction, it really worked very well!
We completed this project by adding plants, doing some wall decorations and re-coordinating colors, which made our reception & waiting area drastically bright and charming. This place became more special to us.
I believe her arrangement is very effective, in a sense that gives me a confidence that I am working in a very special, great place. Whenever I enter my school, I feel so good. Interestingly our students (children) and their family started use our space with more respect. I often had to ask our receptionist to clean and organize when there were empty paper cups or books on the table in the waiting area, but now we do not have that kind of situation any more. Now our students put things back where they are supposed to be after using them. I think it is easier for them to use things and clean them up because the room is now more functionally arranged. And maybe they can see how hard we try to use our space cleanly and beautifully so they respect that. Our receptionist told us she could work more comfortably than before and our customers have given us very positive feedbacks.
I started seeing results one week later after Ai's consultation.
I think subconsciously I felt stressed from seeing things that I could not do anything with even though I wanted to improve them so badly; whenever I see the reception area which was filled with unnecessary things, I felt so embarrassed about it and also I accused myself for not being able to organize them. Right now it is so comfortable to work in this space, and I feel very confident and proud of working here.
I feel very satisfied with the result after Because of Ai's detailed careful consultation service. Her knowledge and passion to make people's space better was so impressive.
I highly recommend you to use her service!
Arrangement sample for Kana
Arrangement sample for Kana
1. Entrance Area
There were two vacuum cleaners on the left side of the entrance, which were the first things that caught our eyes when entering the house. Stroller was beside the shoe shelf. There were family pictures and flowers on it, and the dark color painting was displayed above. We should not place any practical tools in the entrance area because the entrance area's role is to "welcome us."
Before the consultation, there were nothing displayed on the wall in the hall way. But in this kind of long strait hall way, energy tends to run so fast. We do not want good energy to run away so fast but want to let it flow slowly in the house so that it generates its good energy to the entire house.To do so, we displayed some arts on the wall like in this picture, which let energy flow slowly. It is very good to put a long carpet or runner like in this picture too.
2. Study Room (& kid's room)
This room used to be divided into two areas with a book shelf; home office and kid's play area. Kid's area were more spacious than home office area. Ideally, it is better not to have a kid's play area with the home office but there was no option because of the limited space.
This room is located in North West, which is considered to be "Master's room". That means this room is better to be used as a home office. It is the best place for Kana's husband Sasha. But this room was more used as a kid's play room, so we switched each areas so that home office area becomes bigger area to be used mainly, especially by Sasha.
Kana says her husband used to like to be around her whenever he does anything so she did not have any alone time and space. But after the room arrangement, he really likes working in this new home office, which also allows her to enjoy her own time and space.
3. Living Room
It was already nice living room but we did some tricks. The two guitars were displayed too closely to each other, which gave us some pressuring impression. And a sofa was a only place where family sit and relax together but to do so, they all look at the same direction...there was no "face to face" setting.
We gave a enough space in between the two guitars to make a better balance. We put more plants to add more green colors to make the living space more cozy. We also added arm chars so that family can have a face to face sitting so that family can enjoy conversations.
3. Reception & Waiting area (Hug Music）
The reception & waiting area was already nicely arranged but there were several things to be improved for function purpose. We removed a trash bin which used to be by the yellow sofa, because it was the first thing we see when entering the school. Same as home, the reception area is the face of the school. Nothing practical should be seen.
We also replaced an old open shoe rack with a nice wooden shoe shelf so that our eyes do not need to see students shoes exposed. For the reception area, we prioritized functionality of the reception area as well as its appearance so that a receptionist and teachers can work more comfortably. we changed locations of a printer and document files to the places where the receptionist can use them easily.And we added green plants, which represent Hug Music's theme image "bud, leaves, tree growing" , to make the space brighter and warmer.For the waiting area where so many people come and go, we prioritized safety, as well as nice looks, functionality and comfortableness.
