Feng Shui for fireplaces

Claire Kirkwood of Stores Direct has many years experience dealing with woodburners and fireplaces. In this guest post she explains how to deal with the challenges of Feng Shui for the fireplace.

Anyone who has tried to give a Western home a Feng Shui makeover will have quickly found that our houses are simply not built with Feng Shui in mind. Whether you map out your bagua quadrants the traditional way by compass orientation or use the modern Western method which aligns them to the entrance wall of your property, you are more than likely to find yourself stuck with features in quadrants in which their energy is unsuitable.

Feng Shui is based on the energy flow (chi) within your home; the idea being that good chi makes for a welcoming and healthy environment. Feng Shui is rooted in the traditional Chinese philosophy of the Five Elements, in which the flow of energy is believed to be governed by the cycle of the Five Elements of water, wood, fire, earth and metal. The Five Elements cycle has both yin and yang aspects in the form of productive and destructive relationships between the elements. These relationships offer a multitude of ways to deal with unbalanced chi in the home.

Many people find their fireplace or woodburner is situated somewhere other than the fire quadrant. It is rarely practical to move a fireplace to improve your Feng Shui, so another solution must be found. If your fireplace is in a quadrant where its fire energy is unwelcome there are ways to weaken its influence. In the destructive aspect of the Five Elements cycle water quenches fire, meaning you could weaken the fire energy by introducing colours, symbols or shapes associated with water to your fireplace area. You have many options for adding water energy including using the colours blue or black, curved shapes, images of winter scenes or storms, or even a lunar landscape.

Another problem you could encounter is the fireplace being in a suitable quadrant, but alongside a conflicting element which weakens the fire energy. In this case you can draw on the productive aspect of the Five Elements cycle to find ways to strengthen the fire energy. In the productive cycle wood feeds fire, so the obvious solution is to introduce more wood to the area. But you could also use greens, rectangular shapes, images of springtime or plants to add wood energy which reinforces the fire energy. If you don’t like these options you could weaken the conflicting energy instead – metal controls wood, wood controls earth, earth controls water, water controls fire and fire controls metal.

Don’t be discouraged if you can’t immediately see how to improve the Feng Shui of your home. With a little creativity, and some knowledge of how the Five Elements cycle works, you will soon be able to improve the balance of energies in your home and make it a more welcoming place to be.