Q&A Sunday: Laying a Bagua with Multiple Outside Doors

Thank you for your Holistic Spaces podcast. I’m enjoying it very much. I have a bungalow built in 1919 in South Minneapolis with multiple doorways entering the space. Here is my question: using the floor plan provided, how would you lay the bagua on my home?

Alida, Minneapolis, MN

Door #1: From the sidewalk, a walkway leads up to the deck. If you enter through the steps and deck railings, you are facing east and the front windows.

Door #2: On the deck, you have to turn to face north to actually enter the house. This is the door with a deadbolt.

Once inside that room, you’re in a 3-season porch. Half the year it’s my “sun room” and half the year it’s an unheated “mud room.”

Door #3: To enter the main house, you turn to face east again and walk through another door to enter the living room. I believe this is the original door to the house and that the sunroom was added later. (It has an uncharacteristically large closet and lots of outlets!)

Door #4: a sliding glass door from the kitchen to a back deck.

There is a roof over the porch. I’m attaching a photo of the house and the front door from the yard.

Door #2 leads from the porch into the main house. The porch does not have heating ducts, so it feels separate from the main house. #2 faces the street, albeit through the porch.

 

Hi Alida!

Thanks for all this. All the doors can be (understandably) confusing as to how to layout the bagua. People get stumped by this type of situation frequently. First of all, the qi of the home looks very lush. There is a sense of seclusion. Doors represent the mouth of the inhabitants, therefore the main door is called the “Mouth of Qi.” The mouth of qi determines how qi enters your home. 

Door #2 is indeed the main door, or what we call in feng shui, the Yang door. It’s what the official front door is. So you would lay the bagua as shown here where half of your home is outside the bagua.

Door #1 is a yin door. It’s not really a door, but it is a portal. 

Door #3 is another yin door. I understand you were probably hoping #3 was the yang door.

Door #4 is a back door and can be a yin door if you use this frequently to enter the home (maybe the garage is back there).

In regards to a yin door, you can place a secondary bagua using doors 1 & 2, to glean more insight on your situation.

A practitioner may be able to assist you in how to effectively use the yin bagua layouts to support you further. For instance if you do a bagua adjustment, you can do it on your yang layout, a yin layout, and on your bedroom layout.

With a space that has multiple doors, laying a bagua can be confusing, but it can always be done! My first recommendation of course, for accuracy, is to enlist the help of a feng shui professional. If you would like to make adjustments on your own, I would recommend using the bagua I've laid here or laying the bagua on separate rooms of your home. 

Please do reach out if you decide to lay the bagua on your own and have additional questions!

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday" (formerly “Question of the Month”).  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers.  Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Go Green and Get Happy: The Sill

I'm super excited to chat with some of our new favorite plant people in New York City, the staff at The Sill. Located in the Lower East Side, The Sill is a plant shop dedicated to inspiring people to "bring more of the outdoors in" and helping them do just that! Staying in touch with nature is a huge part of feng shui, a great way to make adjustments and, in general, an all-around excellent decision for your space. Check out what The Sill experts, Erin Marino and Christopher Satch, have to say about bringing some nature inside!

AC: Tell us about The Sill and your approach.

EM / CS: The Sill is very different from other nurseries and florists in that not only do we source only what we consider "easy care" houseplants (no green thumb required!), and design our pots and planters in-house + manufacture them locally in NJ, but we also walk you through plant ownership pre-purchase and continue to be a helpline once you bring your plant home. We are a growing community of people passionate abut plants, and we don't want to just sell you a plant and that be it. We want to help you pick out the perfect one and help you care for it by providing tips and advice, as well as plant diagnostics. You're not alone with your plant when you're with us. 

You list five of the benefits of having houseplants on your website. What would you say is the biggest benefit, and why?

All of those benefits - increase in mood, decrease in stress; cleaner indoor air; increase in productivity + creativity; an enhanced environment; etc. - are great benefits to have, but probably the one that stands out the most to us is that your plant companions are uplifting. They boost your mood and increase a space's aesthetic value. Plants make people happy! We also happen to enjoy the air-cleaning qualities, too. Everyone can use some fresh air, especially in an urban environment like New York City where we're based. 

How do you select plants to offer your shoppers and followers and how do you package these plants? 

In our NYC storefront, or when speaking with our corporate clients, we often ask about the environment in which the plant will be located - How close is it to a window? How much direct sun does it get, if any? What's the care commitment that can be invested into this plant? We don't want to give a high-maintenance plant to someone who's too busy to care for it. And we think that that's where a lot of other companies lag. They'll tell you that you can have whatever you want, and as soon as they have your money, it's goodbye. We not only help you pick the best plant, package it so that it's stable during transport, and doesn't get damaged, but we also want to see it through in its new forever home until it's thriving. 

What are 3 tips for our readers, to bring in some of the Sill philosophy into their holistic spaces?

#1 - Know thy space

Keep a vigilant eye on where the sun is at different points in the day. Where is it in the morning? Midday? Evening? How does this affect my plants? How about my humidity and air flow? Radiators and A/Cs can have a profound effect on a plant that's very close to them! And usually a negative one. 

#2 - Keep in tune with nature

To keep a plant happy and healthy in a house, the goal is to recreate the natural environment as best as possible. We provide information on the origins of the species of plants that we carry. This helps us and our customers place the right plant in their homes that their homes' environment allows for, or help them make the changes to come closer to creating it. 

#3 - Have fun

Enjoy your plant companion and have fun with it.  Decorate your pot, or if your plant is a vine, train it along crazy trellises. Use natural stones or gravel on top of the soil of any color that your heart desires. Horticulture is both an art and a science! Let your artistic side shine and express yourself. 

How does The Sill create a holistic space for itself (and / or for your clients)? 

Since plants make people happy, the more plants, the better! Our shop is covered from floor to ceiling in all sorts of greenery. And not all plants are green! Some come in various shades of every color you can imagine. We know that there is something for everyone, and you don't need a "green thumb" to reap the benefits that come with the presence of plants in a space. 

by Anjie Cho

The Sill brings easy care houseplants direct to your door, order online or shop their Lowest East Side storefront located at 84 Hester Street. Featuring their own line of locally made plant pots and stands, The Sill aims to inspire you to bring more of the outdoors in. 

The Sill was created with a simple ambition – to inspire people to bring more of the outdoors in. Our mission is to make the experience of discovering the perfect plants as wonderful as the plants themselves. The Sill is the source that bridges the gap between plants and people – offering products and services that to fit with your personal style, your lifestyle, and your budget. 

Father's Day and Feng Shui

Last month we celebrated Mother's Day with a selection of meaningful flowers. This Sunday, it's time to celebrate our fathers too! Like Mother's Day, Father's Day is a nationally celebrated holiday in America, but not many of us know the history of this day of celebration.

Father's Day was inspired by Anna Jarvis's efforts to honor her mother, which ultimately resulted in the establishment of Mother's Day as a holiday. Similarly, West Virginian, Grace Golden Clayton suggested a day to honor fathers as she grieved for her own father and 362 men killed in a nearby mining accident. 

The very first Father's Day sermon was held in West Virginia, but because of overshadowing events like Independence Day, the celebration did not move outside one small town. In 1910, though, Arkansan, Sonora Smart Dodd, living in Spokane, Washington, inspired also by Anna Jarvis's Mother's Day, urged her community to honor fathers on a specific day in June. Though officials weren't able to make the celebration happen until July 19, it was the first statewide observance, and ultimately, along with the efforts of many to bring the tradition to life, led to President Nixon signing Father's Day in as an official holiday in 1972. 

In terms of feng shui, the Father corresponds to the Benefactors area of the bagua map. The Benefactors area is located at the bottom right corner and is related to the color grey, yang metal energy and helpful people. This makes sense, since our fathers are some of the most important, helpful benefactors in our lives! 

Many of us no longer live with our fathers, but we can still honor them and welcome them in our lives with a very easy feng shui placement. You can honor your father and remember the support and help he provides you by adding something that represents him in the Benefactors area of your space. This item can be something of your father's, something he gave you or something that symbolizes him. Be sure to move this item to your Benefactors area with positive intention and a deep gratitude for this supportive person. 

I hope you all enjoy Father's Day this year and spend some quality time with the first man in your life! 

by Anjie Cho