Feng Shui Front Door

Why the front door counts for so much

Every school gives the front door a leading role, though for different reasons. The form school treats it as the point where the flow comes in, so everything it reads further inside starts there. Black Hat lines its Bagua up with the door. Compass schools take a direction from the entrance or from the way the building faces.

Which door counts is a fair question in a house where everyone comes in through the garage or the side. Many teachers hold to the formal front door, the one the building was designed around. Others read the door the household really uses. If yours are different doors, the common advice is to check both and to use the front door often enough that it is not sealed up behind a coat rack.

In an apartment the answer is simple: it is the door of your own unit.

The door itself

Before looking at what it faces, look at how it works.

• It should open fully. A door that stops at sixty degrees because of what hangs or stands behind it is read as a narrowed mouth. This is also the easiest finding in the whole home to fix.
• It should work well. A lock that sticks, a hinge that squeals, a bell that does not ring and a dead bulb above the step are all counted against it. None of that needs a theory to justify repairing.
• It should be easy to find. A visible number and a lit approach are standard recommendations.

Many practitioners also prefer a solid door to one that is mostly glass, and a door that opens inward. Both are minor points next to what the door faces.

One more thing belongs here: a wall very close in front of the door. If you open the door and meet a wall within a step or two, tradition reads the flow as stopped at once. The usual answer is to give that wall depth with a picture and good light, and to keep the floor to either side clear. The space just inside is the subject of the entryway guide.

Front door facing a window or back door

This is the alignment the tradition talks about most. When the front door lines up with a large window, a patio door or a back door, the flow is said to cross the home in a straight line and leave, without turning into any room.

To check, stand in the open doorway and look straight ahead, not at an angle. If glass or an outside door fills the middle of your view, you have the line. A window off to one side does not count.

The remedies all do the same thing, which is to give the line something to go around:

• A table, bookcase or large plant placed on the line, well inside the home and not in the entry itself.
• A rug laid across the line, which is said to slow it.
• A sheer curtain or blind on the far window, kept at least partly drawn.
• An internal door on the line kept closed.

How this alignment arises in different plans, and why some homes have it built in, is covered under home layout.

Facing a bathroom, a bedroom or stairs

A bathroom. Tradition reads bathrooms as rooms where things drain away, and a straight view from the front door into one is said to send the incoming flow the same way. The plain objection is that guests see the toilet first. Keeping the bathroom door closed is the universal advice. See the bathroom guide for the rest.

A bedroom. The entrance is the busiest point of a home, and a bedroom in its direct view is considered too exposed to rest in. Keep that door closed, and place the bed where the front door cannot see it. Bed placement is covered in the bedroom guide.

Stairs. A staircase that starts directly opposite the front door has a long-standing reading: the flow is said to run straight up to the next floor and miss the ground floor, or to run down the stairs and out. Remedies offered include a rug or a plant at the foot of the stairs and a light on the landing. Practitioners differ on how much distance between the door and the first step takes the problem away; see front door facing stairs.

A related case, two internal doors looking at each other, has its own page under door facing door.

A mirror opposite the door

A mirror hung straight across from the front door is one of the most repeated cautions in popular Feng Shui. The reason given is that it reflects the incoming flow back out before it has entered. The caution is strongest in the Black Hat school and in general advice derived from it. Some classically trained practitioners give mirrors little weight either way.

There is an ordinary reason to agree with the rule. Opening your own door to a figure moving toward you is startling, even when the figure is you. The fix is to move the mirror to a wall at right angles to the door. Mirrored wardrobe doors opposite the entrance are harder, and the usual suggestions are a curtain, a frosted film or leaving the slider open on the side the door faces.

Front door direction and color

This is where the schools separate, and it is best to be honest that they do not converge.

The form school has no preferred direction. Eight Mansions compares the door’s direction with the person’s favourable directions, worked out from a Kua number. Flying Stars charts the building from its facing and the period it was built in. Approaches based on BaZi start from the elements a chart is said to favour and the directions that go with them. Classical practitioners also point out that a building’s facing is not always the direction of its door.

Colour follows the same split. A common compass rule matches the door’s colour to the element of the direction it faces. Black Hat teaching often recommends red whatever the direction. These can contradict each other for the same door.

You cannot turn a door to face another way, so direction is something to read, not something to fix. Paint is cheap if you want to follow one school’s colour. In form-school terms, what the door faces inside the home matters more than either.

Whether your front door truly lines up with the balcony door, or only seems to from where you usually stand, comes down to a few centimetres. It is easier to see on a plan than from the doormat.

SCAN YOUR ENTRANCE

Start the scan at your front door and see what it lines up with across the home.

SCAN YOUR ENTRANCEHow the scanner works

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