The art of feng shui can be intimidating, but once you get the hang of it, it can help you bring the energy of your home to an all-new level. Your home is the most important place where you spend your time, and feng shui can help you create the best environment to work, relax, and play. Even if you have no previous experience, you can start making your home feng shui-friendly in just a few simple steps.
In this article, we are going to discuss some of the basics of feng shui for you to adapt and implement into your home. Afterwards, we’ll list our top seven tips for making your home more feng shui, such is ideal furniture placement, decluttering, and more.
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What Are Basic Feng Shui Rules For A House?
Before we discuss our top tips for making your home feng shui, it is important to detail some of the basic rules of feng shui in a home, so you can understand why these tips are effective and how you can alter other spaces to be more feng shui (ex. office, business waiting room, etc.)
The goal of feng shui is to improve the flow of energy within a space, and this is often done by following simple but impactful rules, such as:
- Keep the space organized and free of clutter
- Ensure the space feels open (crucial for the floor plan)
- Implement sources of energy and life (ex. sunlight, plants)
- Separate work and rest spaces
- Utilize the five elements and colors to promote balance
These are just some of the many rules and tips you can use to improve feng shui in your home and, consequentially, your quality of life.
If you are ever at a loss for how to proceed with this process, we highly recommend referring to the Bagua Map. This tool is one of the main principles of feng shui practice and can help insurmountably by providing a systemic way to analyze and alter the energy field in your home.
What's The Different Between a Home That's Feng Shui And One Not?
People who are unfamiliar with feng shui might think it’s simply a trendy style of interior design when, in reality, there is much that sets a feng shui home apart from one that is not organized and adorned with these principles in mind.
The overarching differences between a home that is feng shui and one that is not are the presence of intention and the attention to cultivating good energy flow throughout the space. Spaces that are not feng shui tend to be
Feng shui is an ancient practice that has been used for centuries to help people live in harmony with their environment. The word feng shui literally means “wind-water” in Traditional Chinese Medicine and is based on the belief that our homes are a crucial space that must be kept in balance with the natural world around us in order to create harmony and good fortune.
As a result, you’ll typically find that feng shui homes take extra care to ensure every decision made regarding their home’s interior design is intentional. You’ll likely see the five main elements in feng shui prominently present throughout the house, either physically or figuratively. These include:
- Wood: symbolizes growth and creativity
- Fire: symbolizes passion and energy
- Earth: symbolizes stability and balance
- Metal: symbolizes logic and intelligence
- Water: symbolizes wisdom and serenity
Additionally, you’ll notice these homes are extremely organized and lean more towards a minimalist style of interior design to reduce clutter and increase energy flow.
While it is not always the case, most non-feng shui homes, comparatively, seem cluttered, use space efficiently, and are designed with no other guidance than the owners’ preferences.
What Makes a Home Feng Shui?
While this can be considered an overtly subjective question, most people who follow feng shui would agree that what makes a home feng shui is the incorporation of this art’s basic principles in as much of its interior design as possible.
Homeowners should use the Bagua Map (or even the more modern Western Bagua Map) to split up the spaces within their home to ensure each has the proper layout, is associated with the right elements and colors, and is then decorated and designed to optimize these spaces and improve the flow of energy.
Owners should know what goals, moods, and emotions are connected to each room and what this means for items, materials, and colors that should and shouldn’t be present.
For example, the bedroom should be associated with restful and calming energy. Therefore, it should be filled with soft-colored items (ex. linens, curtains, rugs), electronics should be limited, and the bed should be in a commanding position away from the doorway without facing it directly.
Steps like these will promote the ideal energy within the room and should be replicated throughout the house. If this is apparent in a home you go to, then it is a feng shui home.
7 Tips for Making Your Home Feng Shui
Starting to redesign your home to be feng shui can be difficult, especially if you’re new to this art’s principles. Thankfully, you don’t have to make major decisions all at once for you home to be considered feng shui. There are many Feng Shui courses online to learn from. Even making small changes using these tips below can make a noticeable difference in its energy and flow and significantly improve your quality of life.
Declutter and Organize
Our first tip is oftentimes the hardest for many, but it is undoubtedly the most helpful and effective when it comes to feng shui.
Before you get into the technical details of what spaces should be designed with which colors and materials, the first thing you need to do is declutter and organize each room. Good energy needs a path in order to move through your home, and the quickest way that path is disrupted is with piles of clothes, kid or pet toys, and other daily life items scattered everywhere. So, start by tidying up, getting rid or excessive or unnecessary items, and increasing space.
Find the Command Position
The command position is a key feng shui element to always keep in mind when designing your layouts. This is when you can see the door to the room from where you are sitting or standing without being placed directly in front of it (diagonally is ideal).
This is important because it gives you a sense of control and authority in the room. When you’re in charge, good energy can flow more freely. Moving your primary pieces of furniture, such as your bed or a large sofa, into this commanding position is another easy but effective step you can take that will also inform how you design the layout around this item.
Pay Particular Attention to Doors and Doorways
The front door is your home’s “mouth of chi,” and what you have coming in through it will either be nourishing or depleting to your home. Make sure the path to your front door is clear of any obstacles, both inside and outside the house. This includes things like overgrown bushes, large rocks, children’s toys, and even trash.
It is also beneficial to make sure your doorways are lit with natural light and close the doors to rooms that are considered energy drains, like the bathroom.
Add Plants
It might seem counterproductive for us to say feng shui requires space and a lack of clutter but to also promote the inclusion of plants. The reason this is the case is because plants are excellent for fulfilling a number of feng shui principles:
- Their colors can be used to promote a particular mood
- Being a natural element means they improve energy and increase health by purifying the air
- They can be strategically placed to remove corners and improve energy flow
Plants ultimately embody life energy, and so, they are rarely seen as clutter and can be your greatest asset when improving home feng shui.
Start with the Big Three: Bathroom, Bedroom, Kitchen
As we mentioned previously, starting to feng shui your home from scratch can be a daunting task, especially if you’re looking at every room/space as a whole. To ease some of this stress, we recommend starting with what is known as “the big three.”
This refers to the bathroom, main bedroom, and kitchen, which are considered the most vital rooms according to feng shui rules. Once you have energy flowing through these rooms properly and they’re significantly improved, you can start to move on to other, less used and less important rooms.
Opt for Round or Oval Shapes
In addition to plants and ideal furniture placement, another way you can improve the flow of energy in your home is to opt for round or oval shapes. This can be in the form of rugs, lamp fixtures, tables, etc.
The inclusion of rounded objects in your home will help prevent what are known as “poison arrows” which come from sharp edges on furniture, corners, shelving, and more. The result is sha chi, or negative chi energy which can be extremely harmful to your quality of life.
Encourage Ventilation and Sunlight
Because feng shui means “wind-water” there is an emphasis on the natural elements and the energy they provide. An easy way to let in positive energy is to encourage ventilation and clean air through the inclusion of plants and lots of open space.
Sunlight is also crucial here and can be promoted through clean windows, careful placement of mirrors, window-paneled doors.
Final Thoughts On How to Make a Home Feng Shui
Making a home feng shui will take a bit of research and plenty of practice, but once you have the principles down and use our tips listed above, you’ll be properly designing rooms to improve energy flow in no time. You can then reap the benefits on your quality of life and start incorporating feng shui into other spaces outside of your home.
