Know about the Feng Shui Tips for Your Kitchen
When you build a new home, designing the kitchen from the home’s location, everything has to be in harmony with the home. A kitchen is one of the busiest places in the house, especially if you plan to cook and entertain guests often. Below are nine Feng Shui kitchen tips for those who are building a new home to consider.
Feng Shui Kitchen Tips
1. Location of the Kitchen
The kitchen should ideally be placed at the back of the house instead of the center or front. This is because the fire element of the kitchen stove will burn away the excellent luck entering through the front door. But if you have a central kitchen, opt for an electric or induction stove.
There are many suggestions where the kitchen should be in the southern part of the house, where the fire element resides.
Some would even go as far as to hire a Feng Shui master to calculate the ideal location for the kitchen; this is done using the primary breadwinner’s birth date to bring good luck to the home by providing more wealth luck to the breadwinner.
So It is not always possible to have the kitchen where you want. Then, you can still create an ideal kitchen with the following few tips.
2. Kitchen Shape
It may be tempting to shape your kitchen in weird and beautiful shapes, like a hexagon. In feng shui, the most desirable form for a kitchen is the rectangle: it represents the wood element. The one to avoid is the circle, as it is a metal element.
Both elements are active and will create disturbance in the energy level. Open fire is no longer the only cooking option,
Different shapes can symbolize other elements; you can use square items to represent wood, wavy and foaming objects for water, and triangles for fire. Use this discretion as placing too many things may crowd the kitchen and lead to problems.
Feng shui is all about energy harmony, which should be the main concern when designing your kitchen.
3. Choosing Kitchen’s Color Scheme
Now that you have a kitchen planned, the color scheme is the next best thing to manage your kitchen’s feng shui. Depending on the kitchen’s location, you can adjust the energy level by painting the walls with warm or cool colors.
Avoid red as it will symbolize fire, which will be too much if you have a gas stove. Also, warm colors like yellow and orange are suitable if you need to boost energy levels. Blue and green are preferable choices if you need to tone down the fire energy.
Most will go for earthy colors like sand to balance out the fire and water elements in the kitchen for benchtops. Black represents water; hence, if you have black granite benchtops, the cupboards should be brown or wood to symbolize the earth element.
When you look at it at a design level, you have to choose colors and designs that will harmonize and look more welcoming.
4. Kitchen Appliances – where to place them
This is a difficult tip to explain, as most kitchen designs will be affected by the kitchen’s size and shape. Ideally, the stove, sink, and refrigerator should not be placed side by side, as each element will clash.
However, placing these three essential items at least two feet apart is not always possible. Most practitioners suggest placing earth elements like a potted plant in between to act as a buffer.
Another tip is to plan a kitchen triangle, which will place all three elements far away and allow the user to flow between them effectively.
The kitchen triangle does not require large spaces and will maximize efficiency during cooking and maintain good kitchen feng shui.
Imagine placing a stove between the sink and the refrigerator. Some would say that the two water elements will create an illusion of ‘tears,’ which is supposed to mean mourning. While most will avoid this placement, some would place a frosted glass or another element in between to dispel the delusion.
5. Surrounding Areas
Beware where you put your bedrooms and bathrooms around the kitchen area. A bedroom represents yin energy as it is where you rest at night, and the kitchen is of lively yang energy.
Putting a bedroom facing a kitchen will make the occupant constantly ill, although no one would like to smell what is cooking in the kitchen daily. If there is no option, a mirror placed on the bedroom door can reflect energy from the kitchen to minimize harm.
Alternatively, place a door for the kitchen, but make sure that the cook’s back is not facing the door.
The belief is that toilets will flush away the positive energy generated by the kitchen, hence flushing away all the wealth of luck. Avoid having the bathroom directly above the stove or facing it. If it cannot be avoided, use the mirrors and doors.
6. Ventilation
Good ventilation is crucial in all kitchen designs, not just for feng shui reasons. Energy must flow freely, and it is no different from any part of the house.
The kitchen is a main Yang energy generator and is also where food smells are generated. Windows are an excellent way to remove odors and draw in fresh air from the outside.
Traditional feng shui dictates that the window should not be placed below a window. It means that the cook has no support (in any way). But this tradition stemmed from the use of old charcoal stoves where the wind either fanned the flames or out, leaving the cook at the mercy of the wind.
While it is no longer a crucial feng shui tip, it is still wise to consider your neighbors when putting a stove below a window, for the smell may upset them.
7. Where to put the Trash
Not only for hygiene purposes, trash and clutter mean lousy feng shui for any home. A kitchen design should consider any garbage cans or recycling bins should be kept out of sight if possible.
It should also be easily accessible and cleaned. Many kitchen designs seal the bin and keep it from stinking up the house. And is easy to remove and clean when needed.
A kitchen is a workspace; any decorations should be kept to a minimum. If the kitchen is done right, there will be no need for ‘remedies’ like using Chinese flutes and wind chimes to balance the kitchen and house’s energy.
Decorations can also clutter up the kitchen and create problems for cooking, not to mention having to clean it from grease and dust daily.
While some decoration is fine, a kitchen should be clean and free from noticeable grime and grease. It will affect your mood and create negative energy.
Knives and sharp objects should also be kept out of sight for safety reasons. They represent poison arrows that can harm a person’s chi or energy levels.
8. Use of Space
While it is tempting to have cupboards everywhere, using space wisely is just as important in feng shui. A crowded kitchen is just as bad as an empty kitchen as it may mean energy getting stuck or flowing out too quickly to give positive results.
A lot of kitchen designers have a general layout of what works. Storage should be functional and aesthetically pleasing, complementing all the appliances and designs of the home.
Eight tips for a kitchen with good feng shui when building a new home. So, the kitchen is where most people are reluctant to renovate and redo once.