Feng shui for your home, sorted by room.

The basics

What feng shui is, where the directions come from, and why every book seems to say something different.

• Feng shui in plain wordsWhat chi is, the three ideas underneath the practice, and the schools you will hear about.
• The eight directions, in plain wordsEach compass direction, the part of life it stands for, and how to use them without overdoing it.
• Why the feng shui books disagreeForm, Eight Mansions, Flying Stars, Life Aspiration and Black Hat. Pick one and stay with it.
• What feng shui can and cannot doA useful tool and a good catalyst. It will not take your problems off your hands.

The front door and entrance

The tradition calls the front door the mouth of chi. If you only work on one part of the house, work on this one.

• Start at the front doorFive steps for the entrance: clear it, light it, guard it, slow it down and know which way it faces.
• Should I paint my front door red?When red is the right colour, when it is the wrong one, and how direction decides.
• Wind chimes, used properlyWhere they help, how many rods for each direction, and which materials belong where.

Bedrooms

Two rooms most of us get wrong for years: the one we sleep in, and the one that finally belongs to us again.

• A bedroom you can sleep inClutter, colour, mirrors, beams, where the bed goes and your best sleeping direction.
• The bedroom, after the kids have goneThe south west corner, things in pairs, and what should never face the bed.

Colour, walls and art

What you hang on the walls and the colours you keep choosing say more about you than you might think.

• What colour are you drawn to?Colour as energy, and what the tradition reads into red, blue, green and the rest.
• What is on your walls?Art and symbols, why pairs matter if you want company, and why a piggy bank works as well as a frog.

Clutter and letting go

This is where every reading I do begins. After 50 there is usually more of it, and more feeling attached to it.

• The baby clothes can goThe one year rule, three piles, and the people who clutter a life too.
• Give one thing awayGenerosity and letting go, the Buddhist way. Start with something you value.
• When the clutter belongs to someone elseA partner now home all day, or the grown children's boxes, and how to get them to help.
• Selling the family homeGetting ready to go, packing, each room, and the lights before a showing.
• Clearing a spaceWhen the tradition says to space clear, and how to do it with a bell or by smudging.

My free guide, Clearing Your Clutter, takes you through it room by room, with workbook pages.

The garden and trees

The land around a house matters as much as the rooms inside it.

• Before you cut down that treeWhat to do about a tree in front of the door, when one should come down, and where to plant.

More garden pieces arrive in the spring, when you can actually get outside and do something about it.

Money and karma

The questions I get asked most often, usually quietly, after a class.

• Feng shui and money, plainlyThe wallet exercise, a dozen tips for the home, and what to do about a missing wealth corner.
• Can feng shui help your karma?Destiny, luck and the home, and how steady kindness shifts things over time.
• Can you want money and still be a good person?There is nothing spiritual about lack. Motive is what counts.
• Karma, in plain wordsWhat the word means, why intention matters more than the act, and the four laws.
• Can you change your karma?Karma as a seed, the coffee shop test, and how it can be cleansed.
• Karma is not out to get youWhy blaming bad luck on karma is a cop out, and a small kindness to try this week.

Myths and mistakes

A lot of what gets passed around as feng shui is superstition, shopping, or both.

• Ten ways to get feng shui wrongFrom skipping the clutter to expecting instant magic, and what to do instead.
• There is no bad feng shui houseHappiness is not waiting in the next house. Three things to do in the one you have.
• The salt water cure, and what I make of itHow the tradition says to make it, where it goes, and my honest view.

Through the year

A house changes with the seasons, and so do the people in it. Dogs included.

• What to do with the house in OctoberSix small fall jobs: open every window once, and wake up the rooms nobody uses.
• Your dog is good feng shuiWhy pets keep a home's energy moving, and a few ways to give your dog a good summer.
• Move your stuff. Then move your body.Four things a healthy home and a healthy body have in common.