Transcript
In city centers where land is a luxury, most people live in apartments and share common spaces like the corridor areas with other households and residents. What we have here today is a three bedroom apartment unit of what looks like around 1000 to 1100 square feet. There are some feng shui problems that are very commonly found in apartments and we are bound to see quite a few in this one. In fact, I’m going to show you 5 of them that exist on this floor plan alone. Let’s go.
Here we have a very typical apartment floor plan that are a lot of condominiums and public housing projects such as HDB flats ook like. Because a lot of apartments share very similar looking floor plans and layouts, practitioners have to be extra careful when assessing them. This is because seemingly minor factors can have a great impact on the feng shui of the property. A splinter for example, can hurt much more than a bruise. And a pocket knife can absolutely do as much damage as a machete.
Over here we have the main door do you see anything wrong with this? Yeah this is pretty obvious. There’s a wall’s edge over here that’s pointing straight at the door.
This is the first very common feng shui problem with apartment that we will come across in this assessment. Instead of the main door facing a yard like what we usually see with landed property, apartments are susceptible to hostile structures right in front of the main door. A lot of times, these hostile energy from external sources come from the opposite block. In this case, it actually comes from the same building. And in fact, it comes from your own house.
Coming from the left side of the main door facing out, it means that it can bring bad luck to the men in this house. Or that the source of problems will come from men at work or in social circles. There’s also a high potential for self-punishment for residents in this household because the wall is actually part of the house itself. Which aspects of life will it specifically affect? It really depends on which sector this area is in in terms of the house.
Now straight away from this main door, you can see another common function problem faced by apartment owners. There’s an energy tunnel that runs right through the door, through the living room, and up to the other side of the house via the balcony. 穿堂煞
Because of space limitations with apartments, main doors are often built with an entry line into the living room. And the living room often has a window or balcony area with a view. This particular floor plan is a good example of such issues. To alleviate this problem, we can place tall potted plants in these areas and these areas.
Looking at this living room, this seems to be the only place to put the sofa. But even so, it is exposed to the energy coming from the kitchen. And there’s no backing behind the sofa. Setups like this indicates that the residents, especially the patriarch, will be vulnerable to setbacks and being victimized by backstabbers. A sliding door can be set up here to demarcate the kitchen from the living room area, thus protecting the sofa.
Something that is worth mentioning here is that if a door is set up here to demarcate the kitchen and the living room, it essentially means that the washroom area and this store room will come into the domain of the kitchen area. This means that the wife in the house can often have suitors around her who are trying their luck. But these suitors would lack quality. More like toilet material. So it would be more distraction rather than temptation. Anyway, if you have a beautiful wife, you can already expect her to get a lot of attention from the men around her. Let’s go back to the living room shall we.
As you can see while this is clearly the dining area it is also clearly sharing the same living space with the living room. I can see why the layout is planned this way. People at the dining table will be able to watch television when they are sitting here. So this during table set is actually serving as a second sofa for the living room.
It can negatively affect harmony in this house and I bet that there would be residents who prefer to sit at the dining tables to watch tv rather than at the sofa. With this layout, the more frequent people sit here to watch tv, the more exposed the back of the sofa is. Ideally a large tall cabinet can be set up here to demarcate the living room and the dining area. But this can make the living space look even smaller than it currently is. So there’s no straightforward solution to this predicament.
Which is the third common feng shui problem of apartments. Often times, space limitations mean that there are just no simple and practical solutions that can resolve feng shui issues.
Furthermore the dining table is under attack from this area. And then there’s an odd door line from this bedroom door. A tall display cabinet can be installed here to handle the issue with the door light or we can also make it smaller. Then place some plants over here.
Actually the more that i look at this space the more problematic I see it. So other than that… instead of making suggestions that would seem impractical,Ii think that this is an afflicted area that the residents just have to live with. Place metal in this area when the 5 yellow arrives. Okay back to the kitchen.
It’s pretty obvious that there is a clash of stove and sink over here. On this floor plan they are directly opposite each other in close proximity. Unlike landed houses where residents have more flexibility to move fixtures about, switching positions of these fixtures in apartments is often impossible. Firstly there is already very limited space to move them about. Secondly the builders may have specifically designed the home to have these stoves and sinks located in specific spaces of the property. So you will not be able to resolve this. You can only try to manage it. And this is the fourth common issue with apartments.
In this case you can place Wood items in this area or plants in this area. So that the water energy is diverted over to feed the wood instead of attacking the fire at the stove. The location of the refrigerator is fine. Let’s take a look at the balcony.
Oone of the focal points in assessing balconies is the view. As i obviously cannot see the view it’s hard to say whether this should be a balcony to embrace open views or one that needs to set up a protection shield against hostile forces. This is a common theme with apartments, especially those in city centers. Because apartment buildings are often built in clusters, there’s always a chance that there’s a building or buildings opposite directing hostile shachi towards the balcony and into the living spaces even the main door. What is clear cut however is that there are a couple of energy tunnels over here and another one over here that runs right through the property. This one via the main door was addressed earlier and this one through the kitchen and up to the balcony will be partly addressed with the door installed here. Moving on to the bedrooms.
As you can see here the door to this bedroom is facing this door and also the walls edge over here. I don’t know why the designer designed it this way. The space challenges must have been pretty daunting. otherwise why would he do this. While the walls edge will be mitigated by this large cabinet over here, the door to door problem still exists. It doesn’t seem like this problem can be resolved. At least if you look on the bright side, the edge of this wall is not cutting into the bed. And anyway a better place to place the bit over here. If you really want to do something about this door-to-door problem, then install curtains on both doors.
In this bedroom, the bed can be placed here. And here we see the fifth common problem with apartments. Due to small bedrooms as a result of limited spaces, the length of the bed actually exceeds this wall. Putting it into the entry line of the door. So it basically slices right through the bed. Oh look and the door is facing this area.
How to solve this? Cannot solve ah. i’m checking my head as i see this. Not much can be done here. The owner better hope that there are no hostile stars in this area,
If you are into symbolic feng shui which is widely practiced in many parts of Asia, a common way that practitioners use to manage issues like this is to place a chi lin here and here. They should be at a level above the doors otherwise they might also paste the five emperor coins in this area and this area.
Okay now we enter the master bedroom. As you can see, this wardrobe’s edge is saying hello to the resident whenever he enters the bedroom. An extension or divider can be installed here. Then you can use this space like a walk-in wardrobe. The bed placement is good. There’s a potential energy tunnel here. So remember to keep the doors to the washroom closed whenever it’s not in use. You don’t want the smell of ammonia to engulf your bedroom when you sleep anyway.
Now because this particular apartment floor plan have a number of feng shui issues, people might think that apartments have bad feng shui by default. This cannot be further away from the truth. But because the amount of changes we can make in an apartment is rather limited, a home buyer needs to find an apartment that does not have these underlying issues in the first place. Put a focus on avoiding bad feng shui instead of finding good feng shui when it comes to apartments. Do make it a point of reviewing the common feng shui problems that apartments have. The ones that i have mentioned in this case study.
And if you ask me whether you should buy this house, I would say it just leans slightly towards the unfavorable side. What can tip it totally over the edge however, is if there are external hostile structures directly facing the balcony or the main door.
For a lot of apartment home seekers who have come across the various issues that I have mentioned earlier, I know they might be thinking “wah talk is easy”. So if you really have to be less selective on an apartment for one reason or another, then pay attention to four key areas. Check whether there are afflictions with the main door, the stove, bed location, and external hostile structures facing the main door and balcony.
Believe it or not if you do find an apartment without these issues on the four areas mentioned, then it is already an apartment better than most apartments.
That’s a wrap folks. Don’t forget to subscribe to the channel and follow me on facebook and instagram. Have fun.