We take a look behind the scenes at a Feng Shui driven renovation of an early 1980s four bedroom, single level home located in country New South Wales, Australia. Master Carolyn McCallum explains
I recently consulted on the renovation of a four bedroom single level home in New South Wales, Australia. After a thorough inspection and meeting with the owner, I had a lot of ideas on how I could optimise the Feng Shui through the construction process. It made me think of aspects that everyone should really take into consideration when going to the expense of a renovation, some of which will be covered in this article.
There are many schools of Feng Shui and during the renovation I took quite a few into account. These included Form School, Compass School, Flying Star School and the lesser known Yin Yang School (fire placement).
There are a number of factors that need to be addressed when looking at the distribution of energy in your home. These include:
- Direction home faces
- When it was built
- Extent of renovations (eg is the roof removed or a large extension added)
- Forms around the home (mountain landforms, water)
- People living in the home
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The landforms around your home affect the strength of the energy within it. A lot of information on these forms are outlined in Form School Feng Shui. Ideally, having mountains behind or other taller buildings is optimum. At the very least your land should be lower at the front than the back. There are some general tips that everyone can use as a starting point.
Obvious aspects like avoiding having the front and back door in alignment springs to mind. In Feng Shui this is not recommended as the Ch’i (energy) moves too quickly from the front to the back of the home and indicates that those living in the home will be unable to retain their earnings easily.
Ensuring the home is of a regular shape is also important. For instance, many people extend part of their home when undergoing an extension that turns the home from a regular square shape to an L-shaped home. Square or rectangle is recommended as this allows a more even flow of energy within the space and more importantly no missing sectors.
A missing sector can indicate issues for a particular person or for a specific aspect of their life for those living in the home. For instance, if the South West of your home is missing this can indicate a lack of support for the primary female or mother of the home. The South West also relates to marriage and relationships so not having this area within the home can create problems in this area for those living here who are likely to feel unsupported in their relationship.
Likewise, having a toilet specifically in a particular sector can have a similar effect. Bathrooms in the South West can indicate issues with relationships however a Master bedroom in the South West is perfectly placed from a Compass School Feng Shui perspective as this sector will be generally supportive of the relationship of those sleeping there.
Using Flying Star School Feng Shui is a great way to ensure your home is as supportive as possible. This school looks at the various elements that are needed in each room to support the energy located there. There are 9 types of energy, some, good, some neutral and some bad. The idea is to activate the good energy to make it work for you, especially around wealth, success, health and relationships and harmonise the areas where the more problematic energy is located.
An example from the renovation is the location of the front door. Originally it was located in neutral energy however by moving it 3 metres I could get it in a position where the energy is very supportive of wealth, success and prosperity from now until 2043! This particular energy is related to the fire element.
Using wood (which feeds fire) and fire (which strengthens fire) are easy ways of supporting the energy elementally. Using a wood door and surround, painting the front door red, placing a red welcome mat and having plants on either side of the door were easy ways to use the wood and fire elements in this instance.
The placement of fire within a home is an important area that is often overlooked and is assessed using Yin Yang School Feng Shui formulas. Two factors need to be addressed specifically. Firstly the position of the fire form itself (stove, ovens, fireplace etc) into one of the 24 positions (mountains) used in Feng Shui.
There are really good, good, bad and really bad positions. The stove happened to be in one of the bad positions although not the worst. Just by relocating the stove from one side of the sink to the other moved it into a really good position to have a stove placed. It indicated that wealth, prosperity and status improved for the occupants living here.
The second factor is to ensure that there are no fire forms or bathrooms in any of the occupants personal energy. If there are, then the occupant can be burnt out or drained of energy respectively. Unfortunately, the fireplace was in the owners personal energy so had to be moved to a more prosperous position from the lounge room into an adjoining sitting room. I was thankful to be able to find a practical solution to this issue.
As mentioned, there are a lot of different aspects that should be considered when renovating. I strongly recommend anyone going to the expense of a renovation, seek advice from an Internationally accredited Feng Shui Professional to ensure you are going to be creating a home that is more supportive for its occupants. In Australia the list of IFSA Accredited Feng Shui Master is available at www.intfsa.org.au/View-users-list/AFSM.html
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