Home Headaches: Bad Balance or Just Chance?
Question: We recently moved into our newly built home and have been overwhelmed with problems. We’ve had a major leak, numerous extensive and messy repairs and many endless items needing attention.
Nothing else seems to be going smoothly either. For example, I had to call the phone company five times to correct my change order. I would say this is a fluke, but numerous errors have occurred with all our utilities requiring not one but repeated phone calls to correct the problems. I can’t think of anything that has not needed extra attention or correction.
My question to you is: Are these just the headaches of buying a newly built home or could something possibly be wrong with the “balance” in this home to cause such stress and aggravation?
P.D.
Via e-mail
Answer: It’s not possible to give you a definitive answer because I don’t know about the feng shui of your new home. In my experience, some people who move into newly built homes have what seems to be more than their share of problems dealing with construction “bugs.”
But since you say you’ve also had problems with utilities and general stress in your life, it couldn’t hurt to check out the feng shui.
Try answering the following questions to see if one of these common sources of negative feng shui could be contributing to your extra load of grief:
1. Is the surrounding neighborhood also new and possibly bare of vegetation? Install landscaping as soon as possible to add a powerful source of positive chi circulating around your home.
2. Is there an imbalance of yin and yang in or outside the house? When yang elements (masculine, hard, bright, active) overwhelm yin (feminine, soft, dark, passive), the result can be chaos and problems such as those you describe.
If your home has a lot of yang (bright color, metal, glass, concrete and so forth) inside and out, make sure to balance these with yin elements, including pale colors, wood and earth, plants, fabrics, subdued lighting, etc.
3. Is your home the target of “poison arrows”? If you’re in line with or across from a tall building or sharp angle that points directly toward your home, you could be on the receiving end of poison arrows or “killing chi.” Remedy this with a small ba gua (eight-sided mirror) attached high up on your home opposite the sharp angle.
Which Way Should Floor Boards Be Laid?
Q: We are in the process of installing birch wood flooring in the whole house. We would like to know in what direction the floor should be laid. Is there a direction, i.e., north to south, east to west, that we should install the planks for good feng shui? Our main door faces south.
L.M. Fong
Via e-mail
A: There is no feng shui advantage to be gained by laying the floor boards in any particular direction. However, in the creative cycle of the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), wood produces fire. So you might want to consider enhancing the strong wood element in your home by adding touches of the color red--representing fire--to the south wall of each room.
Understand Feng Shui and Its Place in Life
Q: I could not find feng shui in my dictionary. What is it and what do these two words mean? Is it something material? A theory? An idea?
Moises Salmun
Via e-mail
A: The words feng and shui literally mean wind and water. The common American pronunciation of these Chinese words is “fung schway.”
As to whether feng shui is a theory, idea, philosophy or superstition, you may get several different answers depending on whom you ask. The word I like best is “system.”
Feng shui is a system for arranging the physical elements in your life in such a way that they are in harmony and balance with nature.
When you’ve come close to achieving this ideal, your life begins to reflect that harmony and balance by making more positive changes possible. But don’t think that practicing feng shui is a fast road to riches or a simple solution to life’s complex problems.
The notion that rearranging furniture can bring success, fame, fortune, health or anything else your heart desires is the simplistic version of feng shui that is talked (and joked) about so much these days. This feng shui “lite” bears little resemblance to the 4,000-year-old tradition known as the classical compass method.
Web Sites Can Be a Good Source of Advice
Q: I am attempting to recondition the atmosphere in my house since the breakup of our family. My husband now lives on the other side of town while the kids and I are in the family home. I hope to eventually change the interior appearance and atmosphere in hopes of generating new and happier feelings. Before I spend hours searching online, I was wondering if you have any favorite feng shui Web sites that you would be willing to share?
Donna Shelton
Via e-mail
A: I highly recommend Lillian Too’s Web site, which you can find at https://www.lillian-too.com. Angi Ma Wong’s https://www.wind-water.com is another good feng shui information source. And you might also get a lot of useful material from Cate Bramble’s site at https://www.qi-whiz.com. I find her rigorous approach invigorating, and you can’t help but enjoy her sense of humor.
These sites are all based on the classical compass (rather than Black Hat Sect) method of feng shui.
Kirsten Lagatree is a New York City area writer whose books include “Feng Shui, Arranging Your Home to Change Your Life” (Villard 1996) and “Feng Shui at Work, Arranging Your Work Space for Peak Performance and Maximum Profit” (Villard 1998).
Mail your questions on feng shui to Kirsten Lagatree, Real Estate section, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, fax them to (213) 237-4712, or e-mail them to kfengshui@aol.com or Real.Estate@LATimes.com. All questions will be considered for use but cannot be answered individually.