Feng shui, explained plainly
Feng shui does not universally forbid furniture against walls. Form School generally favours a solid wall directly behind a bed, desk or main seat — that backing is treated as support. What draws more criticism, mainly in the BTB adaptation, is pushing every piece of furniture in a room to the perimeter, leaving the centre … Read more
No classical or BTB text sets a fixed percentage — there is no rule that says a room needs 30% or 50% open floor. What the tradition actually addresses is proportion: whether furniture blocks movement, crowds doorways, or leaves no clear path for a person to cross the room without turning sideways. The measure is … Read more
Feng shui treats a sharp, protruding corner of furniture — a table edge, a shelf unit, a countertop — as a small “poison arrow” (sha qi) when it points directly at where someone sits, sleeps, or lingers. The concern is about a line of sight and a line of movement, not the object itself. A … Read more
Arrange furniture so that the main seat, sofa or bed has a clear view of the room’s entrance, is not directly in line with the door, and has solid support — a wall or headboard — behind it. Keep the path between doorway and window open. That combination is what feng shui calls a calm … Read more
A “command view” describes a seat, desk or bed positioned so the person using it can see the room’s main entrance without being directly in its path. The reasoning given is that a person is more settled when they can see who or what is entering a space, rather than being approached from behind or … Read more
Feng shui does not treat a missing entryway as a flaw in the building. It treats it as a missing transition — a step between outside and inside that the layout skips. The BTB adaptation of feng shui gives this the most attention, describing the front door as the “mouth of chi” through which energy … Read more
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