The kitchen is one of the most unique and important parts of a home.
While the living room is traditionally reckoned as the domain of the patriarch, the kitchen is reckoned as the domain of the matriarch.
Even though times have changed, this is just an expression or matter of speech albeit with feng shui connotations.
The kitchen is undoubtedly an area simmering with fire energy no matter which directional area it is located in the house.
It is also an area that sees a lot of activities that occur nowhere else in the home like cooking, food preparation, washing, etc.
Moreover, the presence of a lot of hazardous kitchenware makes it a place of high accident probability.
It is no wonder there is a whole long list of feng shui kitchen rules and guidelines that homeowners should practice.
Do note that the following kitchen feng shui rules have no consideration to flying stars, 8 mansions, qi men dun jia, etc.
So they don’t take into account compass directions.
The fire at the northwest for example is a well-known forbidden feng shui configuration called “fire at heaven’s gate”. And it is not listed below.
Many homes don’t even have this problem to ponder.
BUT the following guidelines apply to ALL KITCHENS no matter the layout or orientation.
1) Main door should not see the kitchen
When entering a home from the main front door, the kitchen should be out of view.
If one can observe the kitchen, especially the stove, when first entering the house, he or she would be attacked by the fire energy emitting from the kitchen when walking into the home each time.
2) Elemental clash of stove and sink
The stove is of fire energy while the sink is of water energy.
While water puts out fire as stated in the relationship between the 5 elements, don’t forget that fire can boil water and send it into a frenzy too.
This is why this is such a hostile conflict of elements when the stove and sink is situated opposite each other. And must be avoided.
Having them sit side-by-side will also induce the wrath of both elements.
A side by side placement next to each other will only be satisfactory if the distance between them is at least one-forearm length, about 46cm or 1.5 feet.
Use an auspicious measurement to decide on the distance between them if possible.
A separator or divider should still be placed between them to clearly segment their personal space.
By the same train of thought, the faucet (or tap) of the sink should not be pointing towards the stove.
Toilets should not be located opposite the stove too.
3) Refrigerator
The refrigerator is associated with wealth in the family and is of water energy base.
It should therefore also not be placed opposite the stove.
Moreover, because it is symbolic of safeguarding wealth like a safe, it should be situated either in an area that blends nicely into the interiors or have it’s doors out of sight when entering the kitchen.
For example, if the door of the fridge directly faces the entry way into the kitchen or even worse, the front door, then it is akin to being a very bad place to keep your wealth.
Financial losses and burglary would befall the household.
Would you leave money lying around the living room with the door open?
4) Do not design red color themes
This is self-explanatory as the kitchen will consistently exude a strong presence of fire energy.
Supercharging the present fire energy with red interiors like cabinets and walls will be like adding fuel to fire.
It’s calling for a fire hazard to happen.
5) Paintings in kitchen
The 3 most common feng shui paintings and pictures are:
- Landscape with mountains and rivers
- Flowers
- Animals
Predominant fire energy in the kitchen would turn mountains into dangerous volcanoes and lakes of lava. Flowers would be burnt into dust. And animals would be cooked.
All these creates negative energy that would be harmful to the matriarch of the household.
6) Main door should not open into kitchen
It used to be that the main door of a house almost always serve as an entrance to the living room.
This is because houses are commonly built with the living room in front and kitchen at the back.
But with the proliferation of smaller homes like studio apartments and tiny houses, more and more homes are set up with the main front doors entering a kitchen.
In feng shui taboo, this signifies entering your home from the back door.
It could be good feng shui for those who has the intention of hiding their income and wealth from authorities. But not for those who have nothing to hide.
Putting it in another way, this set up can attract vice-related activities.
Some ways to cure this area include the use of plaster walls, curtains, or fish tanks.
But as every afflicted home is unique, I’d avoid mentioning specific ways to remedy this woe that can be perceived as a solution to all kitchens.
7) Cooking position
The cooking position refers the the standing orientation of a person when using the stove to cook a meal.
When situated in that position, the individual’s orientation MUST not have a door behind and/or a window in front.
This is because a person’s personal energy and aura is vulnerable during cooking as the focus is on the food.
On top of that fire energy would cause that personal energy to flicker. Sort of like when you notice air being distorted in the presence of a very hot object.
Thus, being exposed to energy inlets in the cooking position can be harmful.
8) Attached living space
When there is an attached area to the kitchen that can only be entered via the kitchen, there should be a door for entry and exit.
Some examples are balconies, washing areas, patios, etc.
These floor plan arrangements are actually very common with common homes, especially with apartment units in high-rise buildings and condominiums.
9) Declutter
Clutter is the nemesis of feng shui and every area of the house should be decluttered. Not just the kitchen.
But the kitchen is a special place in a house. It contains fire energy that can potentially power up wealth luck, associated with the matriarch in the household, and often directly linked to other common areas.
Clutter in this area would negatively affect, or even confuse energy is that moving about the house.
So do make it a point to keep this space relatively clutter-free.
You don’t need to keep it in a showroom condition (even though that would be pleasant). But tidying up the place can go a long way towards avoiding bad feng shui.
10) No kitchen at the center of the house
Another fundamental rule that feng shui masters would be able to observe immediately from a floor plan is when the kitchen is located at the center of the house.
When you square off your floorplan and draw two diagonal lines from corner to corner, you would be able to determine the center of the house.
Ideally, the kitchen would not be at the center area of the property. If you have the kitchen here, then at least avoid having the stove at the identified center or close to the center.
The metaphor for this affliction is that fire energy would burn up the auspiciousness of the house. Surely you don’t want that to happen to your property.
Should you have a door?
To close this list of kitchen feng shui rules that apply to all homes, let’s finish with one of the most common questions about kitchens.
Should you have a door for entry into the kitchen?
While the ideal feng shui practice is to have a door as demarcating different spaces allows for better management of energy residing in different spaces (especially when the kitchen has strong fire energy), it is not absolutely necessary.
However, having the kitchen sharing the same space with other living areas as in the illustrated diagram examples used in this article is not recommended at all from a feng shui point of view.
Saying that, it is a common catch-phrase in feng shui circles to mention that single homeowners will have difficulties finding a marriage partner if there is no door to the kitchen.
Even if you have no doors for the kitchen, it is always suggested to at least have the kitchen properly segmented from other living space with walls.
If for example, in an open concept home where the living room and kitchen shares the same living space without proper or noticeable demarcation, then it is akin to bringing fire into the living room. This can harm the the patriarch and bring adversity into his life.
While there are various other compass based fengshui aspects that we can look into, as long as you follow the feng shui kitchen rules listed here, the odds are that you will do just fine.