How do the doors in my home affect my Feng Shui???

Feng shui is not all about placing Buddha’s, three legged Toads and making your home or office look like the inside of a Chinese restaurant (unless of course you are a Chinese restaurant). You need to concentrate on the Feng Shui essentials that are so often overlooked. The main entrance door is perhaps one of the most important areas of a home or office; it is where all of the qi (ch’i) enters the building and the quality of the qi is dependant on the quality of the door area, hall and driveway.

It does not get any worse than this…… i hope!

Qi (energy) enters the building through the doors and windows in your home or office. However, the front door of your house is where the major bulk of Qi enters and therefore this door plays an important role in determining the quality of Feng Shui experienced by the household or office. The location of your main entrance door within the house is extremely important.

Most homes have two main doors; the most used one would be the door that all your post comes through and all your guests enter and leave through (front door) and the other, which could be a garage, kitchen or side door. This is usually the favoured door chosen by the occupants due to the convenience of its position.

How serious do we take all this information? I teach Feng Shui to hundreds of Feng Shui Practitioners and students from all over the world. There are times when I do not always practice what I preach, but believe me when it comes to doorways, halls, driveways etc my home and business will always be kept spotless. The doormats will be replaced as soon as they start to wear, Doors, frame, paintwork and the area around door outside is cleaned weekly, brass door furniture polished when needed, hinges oiled when needed, glass cleaned every few weeks.

The best way to look at this situation is by associating your door to your mouth; it is where the food (qi) enters the building and the cleaner the mouth (door) area the better the quality of nutrition entering the building.

The problem with Feng Shui these days is that it has been romanticized with thousands of books and websites portraying it as a quick fix to all your problems by placing a Buddha statue, Mandarin Ducks or a three legged Toad here and there and low and behold, your dream date knocks on the door with a case full of money along with a miracle cure for eternal youth. I am sorry to disappoint you but if you placed your three legged Toad on top of all the dust in your hallway by the main door and you have not cleaned this area in a few months, do not expect anything great to happen, the energy of these symbolic cures and enhancers work with the environment they are placed in; so a nice clean area will synchronize better.

It really is no different to your body. If you smoke 40 cigarettes a day, drink 2-3 bottles of wine daily, eat junk food all the time; do not think by taking a vitamin C tablet daily that it will counteract all the damage these products will be doing to your body. Please do not think I am standing on a pedestal and making out I am whiter than white, I love good wine and because of my travels, I sometimes eat junk food but it is all done in balance and moderation. Do not take Feng Shui to the extreme, just get a good balance in the home or office and spend some time looking through our facebook page (which you can find the link to on the left hand side of this site) and all our extensive free resource on our website, there is some good advice here and you do not have to spend hundreds of pounds, it’s all free.

Some golden rules when it comes to main entrance doors:

1 ) Decide on which door to use and use this one door only. Having two main entry doors can often cause unnecessary squabbling and arguing amongst occupants. That is why it is important to just use one door to enter and leave, it is okay to use the other door if it leads to the garden and you want to access it or throw your rubbish away. If you live in a home that has two or more doors but you can only enter through the main front one as it could be terraced or semi-detached, it is fine to use all the doors as the main entering and leaving will only be through one door.

2 ) Make sure the size of the door is in proportion to the size of the property. If your front door is too big, opportunities will slip you by and if it is too small, it can cause disharmony within the household. If you feel your door is too big or small, hang a faceted crystal sphere on the inside of the door. In traditional Feng Shui there are auspicious measurements for doors and one of the reasons why we introduced auspicious dimensions in our new V3 Feng Shui software; this automatically tells you exactly what sizes are good and bad with preloaded doors, windows and other household furniture and fixtures. These auspicious measurements are used for doors, windows, desks, beds, furniture and every item you can think of and are taken very seriously is China and other eastern countries.

3 ) Strictly speaking, a solid front door is always preferable to a glass-panelled one. If you have a glass door do not worry, just hang muslin, voile or a similar cloth over the glass. Personally I prefer a glazed door as I prefer natural light so please do not concern yourself if you have a glazed door although you should really avoid glazed panelled doors like below as they represent a cutting energy.

The photo below was taken by myself a while ago in London and gives a superb example of how you should NOT keep your doorway; notice the shape of the caged type door and the wheelie bin beside the door and also right below a window and before you email me saying they probably did not have an option with the bin, they had many options and chose the easy route. The home actually tells even more stories which I will be publishing very soon. You can refer back to the wheelie bin article I wrote in the notes section for good placement of rubbish bins.

4) Ideally, a front door must be bigger than the back door encouraging Qi to enter through this aspect. If you have a larger rear door hang a crystal faceted sphere here.

5 ) I visit a lot of City properties all over the world and many of the homes I see keep their waste bins right beside the main door (see picture above) most because they have no choice. If you do have a choice please try and store it as far away from your door as possible, it might help to refer to the article I wrote on wheelie bins in the note section on our facebook page which you can find the link to on the left hand side of this site. If you think of it logically, it is obvious if you leave such a smelly and dirty bin beside your door the smell alone is not good so you can imagine what the quality of the energy is like. If you do not have a choice make the sure the bin is cleaned and disinfected every week. A Chinese belief is if you have your wealth area where you have a bin it will bring in stinky money (a Chinese saying for money that has been obtained illegally or immorally) and if you have your relationship area where you have your bin it will bring… you get the picture?

6 ) A front door needs to open inwards to allow beneficial Qi to enter. There is no cure for this one it must open inwards.

7 ) It is important that the front door opens easily without obstacles or difficulties. Broken door furniture must be replaced. Hinges should be oiled regularly. The front door must be well maintained and clean. Brass (metal) door furniture should be gleaming and paintwork or varnish should be in good condition.

8. Make certain that the name or number of your house is clearly visible by day and night in order to maintain harmonious relationships with callers.

9 ) The most vital thing to do is to make very certain that this door is not being hit by anything sharp or angled. This is what is considered ‘exterior poison arrows’. These structures can transform quality energy into a bad one and you would not want this transformation at your front door. If you feel you have poison arrows directed at your home place a Ba Gua mirror above the door.

10 ) Make sure the front door bell is easily located and works at all times. It should also have a nice ringing tone to it. I have stood waiting outside many front doors and had to use my mobile phone to call in as the doorbell was not working.

Warm wishes to you all.

Michael