Feng shui, explained plainly
Feng Shui Pack Editorial Team 
Feng shui treats houseplants as living chi — a sign of growth, health and attention in a room — rather than as air-filtration equipment. Claims that houseplants meaningfully clean indoor air come from a specific, often misread scientific study, not from feng shui texts. The two ideas point in a similar direction but come from … Read more
Feng shui treats stagnant, unmoving air the way it treats standing water or a blocked doorway: as a sign that chi (qi) is not circulating. Form School and the BTB adaptation both connect stale air to sluggishness in a household and recommend restoring airflow through windows, doors and less clutter. The qi explanation is a … Read more
Overhead lighting is treated as only one layer of a room’s light, not the whole of it. Most feng shui guidance — largely from the BTB adaptation — warns against a single central fixture as the sole light source, especially one directly above a bed or desk, and recommends layering ceiling light with lamps at … Read more
Artificial lighting is layered by combining three distinct functions in one room — ambient light that fills the whole space evenly, task light aimed at a specific activity, and accent light that highlights an object or surface — rather than relying on a single overhead fixture to do all three jobs at once. This is … Read more
Feng shui treats a windowless room as a space with weak or stagnant chi (qi), because no school of the tradition, classical or modern, considers a closed box with only a door to be able to circulate air or light on its own. The practical suggestions that follow — mirrors, light, air movement, careful use … Read more
Feng shui treats natural light as a sign that a space is active and habitable — traditionally read as strong yang chi, the animating half of the yin-yang pair. A room that gets daylight is judged easier to live in and easier to keep well; a room that never does is treated as a problem … Read more
Feng shui traditions do not agree on a single rule for family photographs. The BTB (Black Sect Tantric Buddhist) adaptation assigns them to specific bagua zones — a marriage corner, a family corner — based on subject matter. Classical Form School cares less about what a photograph shows and more about its visual weight, size … Read more
Feng shui treats books mainly as Wood element objects that carry information and stored thought, and treats open shelving as neutral furniture whose effect depends on tidiness, height, and position rather than on the shelving itself. A crowded, dusty, or precariously stacked shelf is read as stagnant chi; a sorted, accessible one generally is not. … Read more
Feng shui treats curtains as a control on how much light, air and view move through a window — not as decoration first. Practitioners generally suggest coverings that can be fully opened during the day and closed at night, in fabric and colour matched to the room’s function, rather than anything left permanently shut or … Read more
Feng shui treats rugs and floor coverings as material choices governed by the five-element system, and as physical objects governed by ordinary household caution. A rug’s colour and pattern are read for the element they carry — fire, earth, metal, water or wood — while its placement is judged mainly on whether it sits flat, … Read more