Feng Shui Questions, Answered Straight

Short answers to the questions people actually ask, each with the classical rule and the practical take. Every answer links to the full guide if you want the reasoning. Where the tradition makes a claim, we report it as the tradition's claim, not as a promise.

Can my bed face a mirror?

The classical rule says no: a mirror facing the bed is held to disturb rest and, in the folk reading, to invite a third party into the relationship. The practical take is simply to move the mirror to a side wall or cover it at night, both of which satisfy the rule. The full reasoning is in the bedroom guide.

Which direction should I sleep with my head pointing?

Classical compass feng shui makes this personal: your favorable directions come from your kua number (卦 guà, your personal trigram number), calculated from birth year and gender. Point the headboard toward one of your four good directions if the room allows, but never at the cost of the commanding position. Work out yours with the kua number calculator, then check the directions guide.

What is a kua number?

Your kua number is a digit from 1 to 9 (skipping 5) derived from your birth year and gender, and it assigns you four favorable and four unfavorable compass directions. It is the personal half of classical feng shui, the part that travels with you rather than belonging to the house. The kua number calculator gives you yours in seconds.

Where is the wealth corner in my house?

The everyday rule reads it as the corner diagonally opposite the main door, the point farthest from the entrance; the fuller compass systems locate wealth positions from the house's facing instead. The wealth corner guide explains the diagonal rule, its three conditions, and what traditionally goes there.

What should I put in the wealth corner?

The tradition favors things that gather and keep: a healthy plant, good light, a tidy corner that is actually used, and the classical wealth objects such as 貔貅 (píxiū, the hoarding beast) or 五帝錢 (wǔdì qián, five emperor coins). What it advises against is clutter, bins, and drains in that spot. The wealth corner guide covers placement and facing for each object.

Is a house facing north (or any direction) bad feng shui?

No direction is universally bad. In the eight mansions system, a facing suits some occupants and not others, depending on whether your kua group matches the house type. Before worrying about your facing, find your own group with the kua number calculator.

Can my bed face the door?

The classical rule is against a bed directly in line with the door, while still wanting the door visible from the pillow. The ideal is the commanding position: solid wall behind the headboard, door in view, bed out of the door's direct line. The bedroom guide shows the layouts that achieve it in small rooms.

Is it bad to sleep under a beam or a window?

The tradition advises against both: a beam overhead is read as pressing qi (氣 qì, the vital energy), and a window behind the headboard as missing support. The practical fixes are to shift the bed, use a canopy or a taller solid headboard, or keep heavy curtains closed at night. Details in the bedroom guide.

Is a front door facing a T-junction or a straight corridor bad?

The classics treat a straight road or corridor aimed at the door as rushing qi, too fast and too direct, and traditionally soften it with a screen, a hedge, or a solid gate rather than by moving house. If your door faces a neighbor's door, the tradition reads it as contention but ranks it mild. The front door guide covers the related straight-line alignments inside the house.

What color should my front door be?

By the classical method, door color follows the compass direction of the door, through the five elements: the direction has an element, and the color should feed or match it. A north door suits water and metal tones, a south door suits wood and fire tones, and so on. The full direction-by-color table is in the colors guide and the front door guide.

Should a mirror face the front door?

The common rule says no: the tradition reads a mirror opposite the entrance as bouncing incoming qi straight back out. A mirror on a side wall of the entry, where it widens the space without facing the door, is the accepted placement. More in the front door guide.

Which way should my desk face?

The commanding position again: back to a solid wall, door in view, never with your back to the entrance. If you can also face one of your kua's favorable directions, the tradition counts that as the ideal working setup. Layouts for offices and WFH corners are in the desk and office guide.

Are feng shui apps and online calculators accurate?

For the arithmetic, yes: a kua number or an annual star chart is a fixed formula, and a well-built calculator computes it exactly as a practitioner would. What an app cannot do is read your actual floor plan, landform, and priorities, which is the larger half of the practice. Our own kua calculator shows its formula openly so you can check it.

What are the five elements?

The five elements (五行 wǔxíng, "five phases") are wood, fire, earth, metal, and water: the correspondence system that maps directions, colors, seasons, and shapes onto two cycles, one that feeds and one that controls. Learn the two cycles once and most feng shui rules stop being arbitrary. The five elements primer is the ten-minute version.

What is the bagua map, and do I really need a compass?

The bagua (八卦 bāguà, "eight trigrams") is the eight-sector grid you overlay on your floor plan to locate each life area. Classical compass school aligns it to real compass directions, which your phone can supply; the Western BTB school aligns it to the front door instead. This site uses the compass method and explains the difference in the bagua map guide.

Where is the Five Yellow in 2026, and what do I do about it?

In the 丙午 (bǐngwǔ) Fire Horse year (February 4, 2026 to February 3, 2027), the Five Yellow (五黃 wǔhuáng, the annual affliction star) sits in the south, sharing the sector with Tai Sui (太歲 tàisuì, the Grand Duke). The classical advice is to keep the south quiet, skip renovations there this year, and place metal to drain the star. The full chart and cures are in the 2026 flying stars guide.

When should I update my home for the feng shui new year?

The annual stars change at Li Chun (立春 lìchūn, the solar "start of spring"), which falls on February 4 in 2026, not at the Lunar New Year parties. The tradition's habit is to remove last year's cures in late January and place the new year's before Li Chun. The current placements are in the 2026 flying stars guide.

Does feng shui actually work?

Honestly: the classical claims about fortune are the tradition's claims, and no controlled study validates them. What the practice reliably delivers is a coherent, old, and internally consistent method for arranging a home, and many of its rules, commanding positions, uncluttered centers, softened sightlines, overlap with plain good design. We keep the two apart on every page, starting with what feng shui is and is not.

---

Have a question this page does not answer? The room-by-room guides go deeper, and the kua number calculator is the fastest way to make any of it personal.