How to Get Perfect Feng Shui Flooring
Nov 13, 2023
Those who are familiar with the basics of feng shui are aware that flooring makes a big difference. After all, the purpose of feng shui is to create an environment that’s practical and well-constructed, while staying calm and inviting.
Feng shui is the foundation of our homes. How we incorporate feng shui is something that invites good energy in your house. In addition to creating positive energy in your interior décor, feng shui can also provide helpful design and layout tips for those who are looking to maximize the most possible free space around them.
What Is Feng Shui?
Feng shui is an ancient Chinese science and art that relates to the physical arrangements of a home or building and the subsequent flow of energy (also called chi). Feng shui is based on certain ideas and principles that are aimed at harmonizing us with our surrounding environment. In simple words, following the rules of feng shui allows us to make a far happier space in our homes or offices.
Flooring That Caters to Your Needs
Of course, it’s important to find the flooring that suits your lifestyle and caters to your personal preferences. You should focus on specific factors, such as whether you’re working in an office space or decorating for a home with children. In general, make sure you achieve feng shui that doesn’t interfere with your personal preferences and achieves how you want the final product to look.
Feng Shui Colors Best Suited to Your House
In the feng shui philosophy, the color scheme plays a pivotal role in establishing the energy of your house. The floor is associated with the earth element. This means that colors are best suited to calm, earthy colors like browns, tans, greens, and warm grays.
Tai chi commands the most attention. Tai chi refers to redirecting energy through martial arts and is similar to feng shui in the sense that it focuses on balance. Choosing brown, yellow, or earthier tones help to establish this concept of harmony and health. The walls and ceilings need to complement the rest of the decor. Pairing deeper and darker shades together might dampen the enjoyment of the atmosphere.
Then, you can complement these earthy tones of your flooring with green tones in the rest of your interior design elements. Plants play a major role in enhancing the beauty of your wood flooring and providing good feng shui.
Feng Shui Shapes
In feng shui, shapes are an important aspect of the designing process. Shapes and layouts are said to strengthen the flow of energy through the home. Likewise, spaces that poorly utilize shapes and layouts are said to block energy flow and create stagnant areas, both in the home and in the home’s energy. Here are some decorating shapes that align with the different zones of your home.
East Rooms
Wooden furniture and home decor can best match and boost the energy of feng shui in east rooms. Avoid using things made of metal.
Favorable shapes for east rooms:
Southeast Rooms
Natural crystals, wood, and rugs, and earthenware can be used for decorating the room.
Recommended shapes for southeast rooms:
South Rooms
Wooden furniture and all-natural fibers like sisal, linen, jute, etc, can be used.
Feng shui shapes for southern rooms:
Southwest Rooms
You can add rock crystals, candles, and earthenware. Avoid using mirror-like surfaces or wooden furniture or decor items.
Feng shui shapes for southwest:
West Rooms
Furniture and decor items made of rock crystal, metal, all earthenware, and glass can be used.
Feng shui shapes for West Rooms:
Northwest Rooms
All earthenware (ceramics, clay, pottery, etc), glass, metal, and natural crystals can be used as furniture and decor items.
Good shapes for Northwest Rooms:
North Rooms
Mirror-like surfaces, glass, metal can be used.
Feng shui shapes for North Rooms:
Northeast Rooms
For furniture and home decor, you can use candles, rock crystals, and all earthenware.
Recommended shapes for Northeast rooms:
Importance of Physical Elements
The key elements of feng shui include the five natural ones:
An ideal feng shui floor incorporates all these elements in the right proportion. You may feel it’s difficult to do so, but with the correct approach, you can achieve exactly the correct spatial construct and energy. Combining the elements will help create a nourishing cycle in which each element complements the other.
For instance, a room with a fireplace would look better with hardwood floors, but be sure to have these installed in a space-friendly and balanced manner.
The 3 Pillars of Feng Shui Flooring
It’s better for the flooring to look seamless, as it glides in your home from end to end, guiding and emanating positive energy. Having a dark wood floor in one room that transitions to white tiles in the next one would just stop the energy at the junction.
As we have established, energy-wise flooring is the foundation of an excellent feng shui inspired home. While designing a great floor, you need to keep in mind the grains, colors, and styles. The placement and plank size is vital for positive energy. Let’s take a deeper look into the pillars of proper feng shui flooring.
Benefits of Wood Flooring
There’s no one right choice of material for floors. Your decision should be guided by personal preference as well as common sense, to prevent design mistakes that create poor feng shui. You wouldn’t think about carpeting the patio, would you? That is what the philosophy of feng shui truly is, a healthier, more organized, and harmoniously interconnected home. The healthier and human-friendly material is wood and a hard oak will have many beneficial effects on your health
If you’re specifically looking for a more relaxing touch, wood is preferable. Exotic wood soaked with lots of oils can be great for this purpose. Rules of feng shui do allow the use of stone and ceramic tiles as well.
According to feng shui principles, humans seek clarity. If the reflective floor is the clearest thing in the room you are bound to lower your head and walk in a slow, and somber manner. That is why the experts suggest having a neutral matte finished floor but a brightly lit ceiling to amp up our energy.
Go For Neutral, Earthy, and Natural Colors
According to feng shui rules, it’s better to select colors that are neutral, earthy, and natural. Since the whole concept of feng shui is based on enhancing the natural connections of humans with their surroundings and nature, it’s only fair to have floors as close to their natural essence as possible.
Classic wood floors rarely turn out wrong due to their ability to blend well with almost any color scheme. Whichever color provides a more cohesive feeling is our go-to enhancing choice, be it carpeting, stone, tile, or laminate. Feng shui states that each color is an expression of one of the five elements and every element tends to govern a specific place in your home according to the principles. Therefore, your focus when choosing should be to nourish the dominant element in the area you are decorating.
Choose Subdued Floor Patterns
As a general rule, feng shui suggests the floor patterns should be subdued because they are visually arresting and tend to pull energy towards them. Since down translates to down and out, it’s never a good idea to choose this direction for moving your precious energy. Stripes are probably the worst way to go since they signify argument and are simply just too noticeable especially when the colors are in major contrast. While checkerboard patterns don’t portray arguments, they still tend to stand out. The busy and clustered visual is another repellant to these patterns.
The two-floor patterns you must avoid are the starburst and diamond shape. The diamond is just a checkerboard inverted to a 45°angle and its poison arrows at every door ruin the energy. The same is the issue with the starburst pattern, it also has arrows but much more than the diamond and the sharpness of this will render your feng shui stingy.
One thing we love is the hexagon. They can simply make no arrows and tend to come in a variety of sizes and colors so you can have your pick. If you have a good eye and understanding of feng shui, you can easily manage to design a floor that is stylish and fun, without any form of chaotic disharmony.
The Layout and Direction of Flooring
What is the best choice for tile layout? Remember, the feng shui principles emphasize this matter. The initial step you should take is to understand and figure out the direction of energy in your space. Narrow hallways must not have long and thin lines of tiles, especially if there are doors or windows at the end. But the worst mistake you can make is to combine different directions in the same room. That’s one havoc you don’t want to encounter in terms of energy.
A floor design that is continuous throughout the house is probably the best practice as it gives the place a strong and supportive chi. Each room with its unique floor may seem like a fun experiment, but it weakens the chi and upsets the energy flow. If you want to experiment a bit, start with the bathroom and kitchen floor because having different floors than the rest of the house in there is a continuing trend.
According to feng shui, the way you lay boards will dictate the direction of energy flow.
In a narrow hallway, the boards should be placed along the length and not along the width. Even if you’re not set on achieving a feng shui, an interior designer will also tell you that laying boards across the width is a poorer choice – it makes the hallway appear shorter and more closed-in. However, if the hallway leads to a door or window, you’d want to do the opposite, and lay the boards along the width of the hallway. This keeps the direction of the boards from simply leading the chi out of your home through the door.
Avoid Heated Floors
Because floor heating is a common feature in colder regions, we should briefly correlate this with feng shui principles. The verdict is that feng shui doesn’t support heated floors because they adversely affect the human body by reversing the natural laws of energy flow. Feng shui believes that the only natural source of heat is the sun, and it should stay this way.
Also, feng shui originated in China and the Chinese tend to believe that walking several hours on artificially heated floors speeds up the aging process. We’re all aware of the practice of soaking feet in cold water to eradicate fatigue and improve the health of our feet. Therefore, continuous warming just seems too much trouble for no good reason.
Coherence With the Rest of Your Home
Feng shui isn’t supposed to take over all the aspects of your home decor, but you should incorporate it to create an overall feeling and energy of harmony and peace. It’s important to carefully devise a floor plan that provides a spacious and welcoming entrance since it’s likely the face of your space. Your room placement should also be guided by the rules in case you’re building the home. Ideally, public areas (like kitchens and living rooms) should be close to the entrance and the private rooms further away.
Whatever is in the center of your home affects the energy of the entire house, so choose wisely. The Bagua Map (also referred to as the tai chi area) similarly impacts your relationship with the entire house. Likewise, the overall shape of the house and even the staircase designs have a significant impact on your life, and choosing these carefully will help you in creating a friendly, peaceful, and positive environment in your home with clutter and negative energy at a minimum.
Always discuss these preferences with your designer. Ask them how to decorate the rest of your house in a way that compliments your flooring choice. And if you’re ready to improve the feng shui flooring of your home contact us at (407) 262-7979 for a free consultation.