A bright living room with large windows, timber beams and pale seating, lit almost entirely by daylight.

Photograph via Pexels.

Start with the room you are standing in

Feng shui, room by room — with the reasoning attached.

Most advice online is a list of rules with no source and no reason. This is the same material sorted by the room you actually want to change, with the school named and the practical logic separated out from the tradition.

Red — what the tradition holds, and which school Green — the practical reason, where there is one

The rooms

Pick a room

Each one covers what the tradition suggests, which school suggests it, and what the ordinary design reason is where there is one.

A bedroom with white bedding, a plant and daylight from the sideBedroomThe most written-about room in feng shui, and the one with the clearest practical core: where the bed sits relative to the door.Commanding position · mirrors · storage under the bedA living room with large windows, timber beams and pale seatingLiving roomSeating that faces seating, a clear route through, and somewhere for the eye to rest.Sofa placement · the television · conversation distanceA bright kitchen with pale cabinets and daylight from a side windowKitchenThe stove is the traditional focus. The modern reasoning is mostly about not standing with your back to the room.Stove position · the work triangle · clutterAn entryway console table with a mirror above it beside a staircaseEntrywayCalled the mouth of chi, and the one place where the tradition and ordinary sense agree completely: do not obstruct it.The front door · mirrors · what to keep outA home office desk beside a window, with plants and a sage green wallHome officeA desk you can see the door from, daylight that does not sit behind the screen, and a wall at your back.Desk direction · daylight · a bedroom officeA hallway with wooden floors, open doors and light from the far endHallwayCirculation, not decoration. Most hallway advice is a restatement of “do not make it hard to walk through”.Narrow halls · doors in line · lighting

The split

The same question, answered twice

Feng shui is two things braided together: an inherited tradition, and ordinary design sense that happens to agree. They are never separated, which is exactly why the advice is impossible to judge — so here they always are.

What the tradition holds
Whether there is a reason
Where should the bed go?See the door from the bed, without being directly in line with it.Bedroom · All schools
You are not startled awake, and you can see the room. Ordinary sense.
Is a mirror facing the bed a problem?Commonly said to disturb sleep or relationships.Bedroom · BTB / Western
No classical source is given. A preference dressed as a rule.
Should the front door face the back door?A straight run is said to let chi rush through without settling.Entryway · Form School
It is also a draught and a thoroughfare. The practical reading holds.
Where should the sofa go?Backed by a solid wall, facing the room, not floating.Living room · Form School
Seating that faces seating is how conversation works. No metaphysics needed.
Where should the stove be?Positioned so the cook does not stand with their back to the door.Kitchen · Compass School
The same reasoning as the desk and the bed: sightlines.
Does clutter matter?Treated as the first obstruction in every school.Any room · All schools
Yes, and for reasons that need no tradition at all.

Why both, every time

Print only the tradition and you have written another unsourced rule list. Print only the practical reason and you have quietly deleted the thing the reader came to ask about. Keeping both also makes the honest line easy to print — sometimes the right-hand column simply says no reason is given for this beyond the tradition itself, and that sentence is worth more than a paragraph of invented justification.

Everything, by subject

Where things live

An empty room with arched windows, bare walls and a wooden floorBuying & RentingWhat to look at, and what is fixable.A bedroom with laundry baskets and clothes left across the floorCommon MistakesIncluding the advice worth ignoring.A narrow entryway with a console table and mirror beneath a staircaseEntrances & FlowHow a home is entered and moved through.A living and dining room with the seating arranged around a low tableLayout & FurnitureArrangement, spacing, and what to leave empty.Late sunlight falling through a sheer curtain onto a wooden floorLight & AirDaylight, ventilation, and why they dominate.Pastel ceramic vases arranged along a plain wooden shelfObjects & MaterialsMirrors, plants, water, wood, metal.A front porch with rocking chairs and a path leading to the doorOutdoors & ApproachThe path, the door, the street.A calm bedroom with pale bedding and a wooden wall behind the bedRoom by RoomWhat each room is said to want, and why.A compact studio apartment with a sofa, small table and kitchenetteSmall SpacesStudios, rentals, rooms you cannot change.An empty room with a hardwood floor and daylight from two windowsThe BasicsChi, the bagua, the five elements, the schools.

Recently

Newest writing

What we can tell you — and what we will not

  • Schools Which school a rule comes from that they agree — they do not
  • Outcomes What the tradition holds that it brings wealth, health or luck
  • Evidence Where it matches design sense that feng shui has been tested
  • Objects What an object is said to be for that you should buy one
  • Your home Principles for most rooms a reading of your specific home
  • Advice Design, arrangement and light medical, financial or legal advice

Where this site stops

We explain a tradition. We are not practitioners, we have not seen your home, and we will not pretend that moving furniture changes your luck.

  • No outcome promises, everNot wealth, health, luck, fertility or a relationship. This is the line the whole genre crosses, and it is the reason most feng shui writing cannot be trusted on anything else.
  • We say which school a rule comes fromForm School, Compass School and the Western BTB adaptation contradict each other constantly, and most English-language advice is BTB without ever saying so.
  • We separate the tradition from the reasonWhere a suggestion has an ordinary practical basis — daylight, sightlines, circulation — we give it. Where it does not, we say that instead of inventing one.
  • We sell nothing in our own voiceNo lucky objects, no crystals, no cures. Where the tradition uses an object we explain what it is said to do and leave you to decide.