The bathroom has a bad reputation in feng shui, and in some ways this is deserved, as you will discover. But it's not all negative. Comfort, cleanliness, and convenience are key ingredients to good feng shui, and our modern bathrooms provide them all. One of
challenges posed by modern bathroom is that there's no good place for it in ba gua* [the feng shui map of a space], which long predates indoor plumbing. We can look at ba gua and see at a glance that Family area would be a good place for living room, that a home office is well-placed in Knowledge, Wealth, or Career sectors, and that Marriage corner of house is a great place for master bedroom. But where does bathroom go?
The bathroom is a little out of place anywhere, although some locations are more troublesome than others. The thing to keep in mind is that bathroom plumbing has a draining effect wherever it is located.
Some very difficult bathroom locations are next to or above front door and on second floor directly above kitchen. These locations are particularly difficult because:
- A bathroom in front hall, close to door, can drain chi away before it has a chance to circulate through rest of house.
- A second-floor bathroom above front door floods main entry to your home with negative energy.
- The water energy in a bathroom above kitchen will extinguish hearth's fire energy, and flood entire kitchen with negative energy. This is potentially damaging to both health and prosperity.
The worst location for a bathroom is in center of your home, where it will destabilize energy of entire home. If you suspect that bathrooms in your house are affecting important spaces, there's no need to panic. Use these simple feng shui remedies to help keep your health, wealth, and happiness from flowing down drain:
- Problem: bathroom in an important feng shui area (wealth, fame, marriage, etc.) Solutions: a full-length mirror on outside of bathroom door helps deflects chi so it won't be drained away; keep sink and shower drains closed when not in use; keep toilet seat/lid down when not in use.
- Problem: bathroom in center of home Solutions: paint walls red, and place a stone, large crystal, or other earth-type object (such as a heavy ceramic bowl, vase, or statuette) in each corner to help stabilize energy; a mirror on outside of door is highly recommended for this bathroom location.
