Feng shui, explained plainly
Feng Shui Pack Editorial Team 
An open-plan space is divided by function rather than by wall: furniture, rugs, lighting and sightlines mark out separate zones for cooking, eating, sitting and working, and each zone is then treated on its own terms — its own commanding position, its own relationship to the front door, its own dominant element. No school of … Read more
Feng shui treats a blocked window as a restriction on chi (qi), the flow of air and light the tradition uses as its working metaphor. A window covered by furniture, a wall built close outside, or permanent obstruction is generally read as weakening a room, though exactly what that means — and what to do … Read more
Furniture placement affects circulation by either leaving clear paths between doorways, seating and windows, or blocking them. Feng shui frames this as chi (qi) — energy flow — moving unobstructed through a room; interior designers frame the same physical layout in terms of sightlines, traffic paths and ease of movement. The practical effect described is … Read more
Feng shui treats a door that sticks, drags or squeaks as a sign of blocked or disrupted chi (qi) — the energy the tradition holds should move freely through a home. Practitioners commonly suggest fixing the hinge, the frame or the floor contact promptly, both because a door should open fully and because the tradition … Read more
A narrow hallway is handled mainly through light, colour and clearing the path, not by widening the walls. In Form School terms, a tight, dim corridor is read as an obstruction to chi rather than a place it should be encouraged to linger, so the standard advice is to keep it bright, unobstructed and visually … Read more
In the tradition, a back door lined up directly with the front door is described as a path that lets chi (qi) enter and leave a home too quickly, without circulating through it first. The concern isn’t the doors themselves — it’s the straight, uninterrupted line between them, which several schools treat as a design … Read more
Feng shui objects to a cluttered entrance because the front door is treated as the point where chi (qi), the flow of energy the tradition centres on, enters the home. Clutter piled there is said to block or slow that entry before it can move through the rest of the house. There is also a … Read more
An entryway should hold what a person needs on the way in or out — a place to sit or set down bags, closed storage for shoes and coats, enough light to see clearly — and it should stay clear of clutter, stacked shoes, umbrellas leaning in the open, and furniture that blocks or narrows … Read more
Feng shui traditions do not agree on this in one voice, but the most widely repeated version — from the Western Black Sect (BTB) adaptation — holds that a mirror directly facing the front door reflects incoming chi (qi) straight back out before it can circulate through the home. Classical Compass School texts are far … Read more
There is no single correct answer. Classical Compass School ties a front door’s ideal colour to which compass direction it faces, using the five elements. The BTB adaptation, more common in Western books, instead ties colour to which “life area” of the bagua map the door falls into. The two systems can give different answers … Read more