There are so many factors to consider when you want to improve the feng shui of your home. In this issue, CHRIS YEO discusses the benefits of open-spaced concepts in living room design, while also investigating new ways to apply elemental feng shui without going overboard with excessively bright colours.
Using a Period 8 Northeast 1 facing house as an example, I want to show you how to make the best use of space within your house to strengthen the positive aspects of this very lucky chart. The NE1 chart is lucky for several reasons. Each sector enjoys a sum-of-ten combination between the main star numeral and the water star numeral. This auspicious combination brings wealth luck as it involves the water star, but it must be activated.
This chart enjoys the lucky 2-5-8 parent string combination in its center sector. Some practitioners say the parent string is more powerful than the sum-of-ten combination, but if you can, I would advise you try to benefit from both. After all, feng shui is only one-third of your trinity of luck, so why not try to get at least that one third of luck in your control as good as possible. The 2-5-8 combo is an all-earth numbers combination where the 8 dominates the unlucky 2’s and 5’s on their own.
Designing the floor plan
When you know Flying Star feng shui, you will always endeavour to position the different rooms of the home to activate the good sectors, while suppressing the inauspicious sectors. In this case, all the sectors of this house are auspicious because of the sum-of-ten. However, certain sectors will be luckier than others. Also, you need to be careful of the pesky earth stars such as the #2 illness star, the #5 misfortune star and the #3 quarrelsome star in individual sectors, even though wealth luck from your sum-of-ten brings money luck to the home.
The first sector to consider is the facing palace sector, which is the Northeast. The NE sector has the water star 8, which can be considered the major wealth-bringing sector of the house. You should not let this go to waste, so design your landscaping such that you have a water feature in the NE sector, one that has water flowing towards (and NOT away from) your front door. Ensure the water feature is to the left and not to the right of the main door from the inside looking out, to prevent infidelity for the married couple living within.
The second sector to look at is the sitting palace, which is the back of your house. The NE1 chart reveals the lucky mountain star 8 in the SW sitting palace, which should be activated with earth energy. Doing this will enhance relationship and health luck for the residents. It is a good idea to locate the back door in the SW sector (i.e. in the middle sector at the back of the house) to benefit from the luck of the sector. A door here encourages the benevolent Chi to enter the house from the back as well.
Notice that although the kitchen is (as typical) located towards the back of the house, in this case the floor plan has been designed so that cooking areas of the kitchen is in the West and not the SW. If cooking is located in the SW, it would ruin the good feng shui of the home since the auspicious mountain star 8 would have been suppressed; and then instead of enhancing the auspicious # 8 star you would have activated the very dangerous #5 water star instead. So remember not to ever locate a kitchen, bathroom or store room in an “auspicious” sector.
Magnifying good feng shui
Moving on to other parts of the house, we see that we should not ignore the 2-5-8 parent string located in the center sector. Because this is such an auspicious combination, let us see how we can tap the good luck here not just for the center of the house but also magnify the feng shui by causing the good fortune Chi to spread to the rest of the house.
The layout is designed to “open” the center of the house. This means that we have one large room in the center, not little rooms which end up trapping good stars. By designating this large living space as the foyer, the living and the dining areas we are in effect creating a ONE BIG room effect. So this whole area benefits from the parent string 2-5-8 sector. We will then be allowing these frequently used areas to benefit from the very auspicious stars. Surrounding sectors which are less lucky will have their energy improved by the influence of the parent string stars emanating from the middle.
Also, because it is one big room, you can easily adjust and update for yearly feng shui by simply moving your feng shui enhancers around your main living / dining area each year. The open space acts like a bright hall within your home, where the Chi can circulate unobstructed. This prevents an accumulation of stale Chi, minimizing the need for constant space clearing.
Using shapes rather than colours to enhance
Once you’ve designed the basic layout of the different rooms and areas in your house, we come to interior décor.
So much of feng shui practice revolves around the five elements, as it is the five elements which characterize the different sectors around the pa kua. Because feng shui needs to be activated to work, the most common enhancers of feng shui after symbols are the elements themselves. The five elements are fire, earth, metal, water and wood. These are associated with the colours red, yellow, white, blue and green respectively. But unless you’re decorating a nursery, you’re unlikely to want to mix and match any room to THAT extent. Usually, if you mix more than three colours, already you are looking at an interior design nightmare.
So use SHAPES! Each element is associated as much with colours as with shapes. Fire is triangular and pointed, earth is square, metal is round, water is wavy and wood is rectangular. These shapes can enhance their own sectors. In this example, let’s look at the use of circles to enhance the metal element. In the North which is ruled by water, metal energy is the enhancing agent, as metal produces water. I thus suggest the placement of a circular rug here to balance the straight lines of the walls. In the Northwest sector which is ruled by metal, the bottom of the stairs has been given a curvilinear appearance, to represent metal element. Remember, you can activate by using either the SELF element of the sector, or the PRODUCING element of the sector. The circular last three steps also broadens the bottom of the stairs, making the corridor of the stairway broader, and the living hall grander.
Now let’s at the use of rectangles to enhance the wood element. The Southeast and East are sectors governed by wood, so here I avoid using circular motifs and instead focus on straight lines for the furniture. Wood is supported by the rectangular shape, while the of circles “destroy” wood in the destructive cycle of elements, thus it is avoided here. To contrast against too many straight lines in the wood sectors, the placement of plants here will activate the feng shui of these spaces.
Outside the house, the garage is located in the North sector, rather than the East sector, because cars are metal element. Placing a large metallic vehicle in the North would thus ENHANCE the luck of the North (being a water sector), but would diminish the luck of the East (being a wood sector). The flying stars of the North are also promising, with the lucky #6 water star here, so parking the car here boosts the luck of the house.
Points to remember
It is both easy and fun to design your own layout and décor using feng shui if you simply follow these easy pointers. Don’t try to do too many things at once, or to work with too many formulas. Stick with these main ideas, implementing them before moving on to anything else.
- Plan the layout of your house by identifying the good sectors and not so good sectors after examining the flying star natal chart of your house.
- Identify if there are any specials such as parent string combinations in your flying star chart, and plant to augment their good luck by incorporating an open-spaced concept within your house.
- Then work with shapes when activating the feng shui of the different sectors of your house.
