Door, Stove, Bed: The Three Basics of Home Feng Shui

Of all the branches of Chinese geomancy, the reading of living spaces is the one that touches daily life most directly. The family method I inherited, Qinghe Yuan, is now in its fourth generation here, and it works from three positions rather than from a list of objects.

They are called men, zhu, zao — door, master, stove.

What the three are

• 门 mén — the entrance door. The mouth through which the household takes in air, light and traffic.
• 主 zhǔ — the master position. The main bedroom or living space of the person who carries the household.
• 灶 zào — the stove. The kitchen hearth; in the traditional framing, the source of food, health and household resource.

Get these three right and the rest of the house is read from a sound base. Get them wrong and no amount of adjustment elsewhere compensates. That is the claim the method makes, and it is worth stating plainly that it is a traditional claim rather than a measurable one.

The door

The orientation of the entrance is judged against the birth chart of the person who lives there. There is no universally auspicious direction — only a direction that suits or does not suit a particular chart. Someone whose chart is dominated by wood is usually comfortable with an east-facing entrance; the same door read against a metal-heavy chart is a different conversation.

The traditional objections are more practical than they sound:

• A door facing a long straight corridor or a road running directly at it — what the old texts call a "spear".
• A door directly facing a lift or a stairwell, where traffic and air move straight at the threshold.
• Two doors facing each other across a corridor, which in practice means noise and a lack of privacy.
• A staircase immediately behind the door, which turns the entrance into a passage rather than a threshold.

The master position

The main bedroom belongs towards the middle or the rear of the plan, not at the front edge where the household takes the full force of outside movement. Beyond that, four rules about the bed do most of the work:

• A solid head. The head of the bed against a wall or a solid cabinet, not floating in the room.
• Not directly in line with the door. Being visible from the doorway the moment it opens is the classic complaint, and it is also a privacy issue.
• Not directly facing a mirror. Traditional explanations involve being startled; the modern explanation is the same.
• No beam overhead. A structural beam directly above the bed is the one item on this list that is also a real ceiling-height and lighting problem.

The stove

The stove governs cooking, and in the traditional reading, household health and money. The objections are again mostly about how a kitchen actually works:

• Not directly facing the entrance door — a kitchen open to the front door is a kitchen with no containment.
• Not with its back to a window, which in practice means draughts and an unstable flame.
• Not jammed against the sink or the fridge — the "water and fire" objection, which is also a very practical objection about splashing and heat.
• No beam or heavy cupboard directly above the cooking position.

Why the three are read together

Individually each is a checklist. Together they are a small system: the direction the entrance takes in has to agree with where the master position sits, the stove has to be placed with reference to the chart of the person cooking, and none of the three should be in a clashing relationship with the others.

This is why a photograph and a floor plan are not enough. The chart is not in the plan, and the site is not in the photograph. A proper reading means standing in the doorway, seeing what the door sees, and walking the route the household walks every morning.

What this is not

Feng shui of this kind is a traditional system for arranging a home. It is not a medical, structural or financial authority. Ventilation, damp, wiring, fire safety and natural light come first every time; where those are concerned, listen to the building professional, not the geomancer.

Written by Mr. Fu, fourth-generation inheritor of the Fu family line and a provincial-level inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in Hunan.