My garage is on the ground level and my front door is next to it, which opens into a hall and stairs up to the first level which is my living area, dining room, lounge and kitchen. Is this townhouse a good design?
Melanie Y.
Dear Melanie,
Thanks so much for reading the blog, and for your wonderful comment on this blog post. It’s interesting that the townhouse you’re describing is probably pretty similar to the house shown in the image in that post: a garage on the ground level, the front door next to it, and then a lot of your living spaces essentially above the garage.
A lot of people ask the question: is this a good design or not? That’s a very loaded question! Feng shui is not necessarily about creating duality by labeling things as absolutely bad or absolutely good, and there’s no perfect feng shui. So I would say, if you love your home and it is a supportive place for you, let’s make it work.
Traditionally in feng shui, it's not ideal to have most of your living spaces above a garage. In a garage, there’s a lot of movement and a lot of energy going in and out of the home. However, this isn’t necessarily bad; for instance, it can be helpful if you want to travel a lot or you need to make connections with people. But, if you need a little more support in your life, it may feel somewhat destabilizing to have your entire home over a garage. Of course, there are a lot of places in the U.S. like this. For example, in San Fransisco and some areas of New York City there are a lot of townhouses where a good portion of the home is above a garage.
Rather than labeling this as bad, we can look at what this situation means about your life and then work with it. The main question I’d ask you is: do you need more stability in your life? Do you feel like things are a little bit challenging, and things are moving around a lot?
If you do feel like you would like more stability, there are some different ways you can do that. There are specific secret feng shui cures you can work with if you hire a feng shui consultant. I’m not going to share them here, because they’re something you should do with a consultant. If you’re not going to hire someone, you can try to find a way to make your life feel more steady and supportive. One way to do this is through routine. You may also find it helpful to add more earth, because the earth element represents stability. You can do this by bringing in browns and earthy colors, as well as heavy objects to provide more support and weight. It can also be as simple as going outside and getting your hands in the dirt; this would really allow you to connect with the earth element of your home.
I hope that helps, and I really encourage you to reach out to a feng shui consultant. We have students at Mindful Design School who can definitely help you with this situation. Thank you again for responding and reading our post!
by Anjie Cho
