Feng Shui Kitchen
The kitchen is listed by many feng shui experts as the most important room in the house as well as the most difficult room to deal with. Kitchen is regarded as the center of the family's fortune and wealth, so it should be kept spick and span. The direction a kitchen faces has a great effect on its function. Many kitchen in ancient China were open to the south-east in order to catch the breezes that wuold help ignite the cooking stove.
The kitchen is considered to be the heart of our home since ancient times. You can use feng shui to make it a happy, useful and healthy heart! When you have discovered in which direction your kitchen lies, you can use “The relatonships of the Five Elements” table to help you create balance. Your kitchen is considered to be more Yang (positive) in nature with strong dominance of the Fire element. But it is also the area that requires least balancing because kitchen is usually already contain all the five elements needed – the stove, cooker and electrical cooking appliances represent fire element, the earthenware such as clay pots from the earth element, the wooden cabinet from wood, metal utensils from metal and as for water, it comes from our running water out from the tap.
How to Organize Your Kitchen
- Being a feng shui symbol of prosperity and wealth, your kitchen should not be placed directly in front of, or near your front door or the back door, where the feng shui chi can easily escape. But for those of you who have your kitchen room facing the window or door, you can use physical or psychological barriers to prevent (or at least slow it down) chi escaping the room. The simplest method is to keep the door closed. Other barriers you can use include large plants, furniture or vegetable trolleys. More subtle methods such as lampshades, mobiles and colors can be used to create psychological and visual barriers. However, placing wrong barriers can be detrimental. A tall fridge or cupboard by the door can block the fresh chi into the kitchen.
Having your kitchen at the entry point can also mean that visitors or guests will leave immediately after they come over to your house and eat. Such a placement can also encourage all the inhabitants to eat all the time. Also avoid placing your kitchen near or directly next to the bathroom or toilet because of the antipathy of the water element (bathroom and toilet) to the fire element of the kitchen.
Ideally, your kitchen should be placed in the back of your house, at least behind centerline of house. It’s better if your visitors dont see your kitchen immediately when entering your house as this can portend digestive, nutritional and eating problem.
- Kitchen can be placed in the East, Southeast and North of your home, but placing your kitchen (or stove) in the northwest can badly affect the patriarch of the family. It signifies fire burning the heaven's gate. Avoid buying homes that has the kicthen in the NW or if it's too late then you can relocate the kitchen to other sectors of your house.
Some feng shui masters suggest you to place a gold gourd or a large jar of yin water in the kitchen to solve the problem, but while the water is reducing the effect of the fire, at the same time it causes the metal element in the northwest to corrode. Other masters recommend us using big earth to solve the issue, earth shuts off the fire energies and at the same time helping the metal energy to grow and nourish the patriarch's luck.
- The stove is the heart of our kitchen. Where possible, the energy source which flows into it, the gas pipe or the electric socket, should be in our most auspicious location. It is also important for the cook to be in a “commanding position” whenever he or she is at the stove. This means that the cook should be able to see the doorway without turning away from the stove. This also to ensure that the cook will not feel jumpy or the food will be spoiled thruogh lack of concentration. Many modern kitchens have the range facing the wall, in this case you can hang a mirror or something reflective such as a shiny sheet of decorative aluminium over the stove.
The stove should not be directly in line with your front door, and it should be placed away from the direct line of any door, window, bathroom and toilet. The stove should also not be position directly under the window (it lacks support). But if relocation is not possible, then you can keep the blinds down while cooking.
Other undesirable placement for the stove is when it is placed directly beside the sink or fridge. This creates direct clash of the fire and water elements. But you can place green crystals between them to act as a moderator. The stove, sink and refrigerator should be positioned in the shape of a triangle (recommended by many feng shui experts) and they must be at least 6 to 8 feet apart from each other. If you are living in a 2-storey building, make sure that your stove is not positioned directly below the lavatory.
- High level of hygiene, good circulation of qi or chi and adequate ventilation and lighting are very important consideration while designing our kitchen. Room with no window and poor circulation can create stagnant chi which is harmful for you. One cause of this is having too much furniture in your kitchen, which impedes movement.
- Do not leave sharp objects such as knives hanging from unit as they cut through the qi and pose as potential health hazard. Pointed corners are a feature of many kitchens – the edges of appliances, the corners of work surfaces, shelf edges, knives and the edges of slatted blinds all send out harmful chi that makes you feel uncomfortable. You should keep your knives out of sight in a drawer and if possible, work surfaces should have rounded edges.
- The color yellow is one of the great choice for your kitchen as it is good for digestion. You can choose the color from as light as ‘butter yellow’ to as strong or vibrant as ‘squash yellow’. Other than yellow, white is another favorite choice as it is the color for metal (fire destroys metal).
Refrain from using dark blue and black (water element), green (wood element) and red (fire element). Blue and black color (water element) destroys fire whereas any color belongs to the wood and fire elements can create an overwhelming fire element in your kitchen.