Welcome back to the Feng Shui Master Class, this is your lesson 5, Feng Shui Interior Design. In this lesson, we’ll look at how the general layout of your house affects all people living in it.
Feng Shui Interior Design Critical Elements
There is a traditional saying about Form Feng Shui: “The 3 most important elements of Feng Shui are door, bedroom and stove” (陽宅三要門、房、灶). We shall have a look at the guiding principles around them, with particular focus on the modern society, i.e. how these principles about the door, bedroom and stove could affect Feng Shui interior design for a modern house.
Door to Door
Architects like symmetrical designs and sometimes this cause troubles. Door-to-door is one of the most commonly found bad Feng Shui interior design in modern buildings. In apartments, if the entrance door of your flat faces straightly to the door of another flat, it is a bad Feng Shui. According to traditional Feng Shui theory, it looks like two people confronting face to face. People living in both flats are prone to having quarrels with others.
Remember in the last lesson we said that Feng Shui theories contain a lot of analogies? The reason of door facing door being bad Feng Shui is because it looks like two people confronting each other face to face.
The same also applies to door within the same flat, say, bedroom’s door facing the main entrance door. The person who occupies that bedroom has a higher chance of having quarrels with people around him/her. In the following example, bedroom 2 and bedroom 2 suffer from this problem, occupiers of both rooms would have higher chance of having disputes with others.
What if the doors are not in exact opposite but only overlaps partially? Well, in this case, if we door a straight line passing through the center of both doors, we would get a line not exactly in 90 degree (i.e. not normal to) either side, but somehow an inclined line. You may think that this is a weaker “sha”, but unfortunately it is not. In fact, this is an even worse situation, meaning that the magnitude of dispute would be greater.
Another variation is door facing the door of kitchen or toilet. So it is not simply door to door but door to kitchen/toilet in effect. What’s wrong with it? Well, in these cases the bad effects would mostly be about bad temper and/or health.
If this is the case of your house, don’t worry. Try putting something in between two doors, say a tall plant, fence or cupboard. For entrance door to entrance door case, hang a curtain or blind in front of your door. It works like covering your mouth by a mask, thereby reducing the chance of direct confrontation.
Door to Window
According to traditional Feng Shui, it is not good to have the entrance door of a flat faces a window opening into the external air. It may be difficult to understand but let me explain.
Feng Shui is about managing Chi. The ultimate aim is to bring in good Chi and store it (聚氣) in your house. This gives energy and wealth to all people in the house. Doors and windows are openings that could let Chi go in and go out. Door and window along the same line means the Chi flowing in could leave immediately. It’s like a company that makes a lot of money but soon spend it all. Money comes and go and nothing is left.
Of course, in the eyes of modern architects cross-ventilation is good for health. Therefore, to have the best of both worlds (health and wealth) it is better to have door and window on opposite planes of a house but NOT directly face to face.
Continue reading “Feng Shui Interior Design (1) – Door, Bedroom and Kitchen [Master Class Lesson 5]”