In the Eight Mansions School of Feng Shui, there is a formula for determining the best location for a master bedroom, based on the orientation of the house. By “best” location, this instance is referring to a space in the house, a directional zone, where the energies are most conducive to good communication and trust.
There are obviously other uses for this information, but certainly the good “family harmony” energy can be absorbed best in a room that you sleep in, roughly a third of your life. This translates to a happy marriage in the Old World system.
This does seem like information best used in the design phase so that you could consciously place the master bedroom in the best zone, all other influences being equal? What do I mean by “other influences?” Well, one influence could be the immediate exteriors. As an example, what if it turns out that the best location for a master bedroom for a certain house type ends up being on the street side? Is that a deal breaker?
Not everyone wants a bedroom near the street as it might not be the quietest area to sleep. And yet for many neighborhoods that would not be an issue.
“Other influences” can also have to do with the additional information gleaned from the Flying Star School of Feng Shui. This School takes into account the construction Era and this could produce contradictory information about the best location for a bedroom.
Working with this simple Eight Mansions formula, the best location for the master bedroom is based just on the “sitting” direction of the house. The “sitting” side is the back side. This is how structures are characterized in the Eight Mansions School and NOT based on the front or facing side.
In order to really know for sure the sitting side of the house, it is best to use a compass and to NOT guess. There are many tools you can use to verify the compass orientation of a house, including use of an actual compass, aerial views from the Internet and remote compass readings you can use on the Internet. This might seem unnecessary in an area with houses lined up on the cardinal directions. But not all houses have an obvious orientation. As well, the magnetic declination is different all over the world. For example, you might be guessing that your house faces south, only to realize that it is southwest or southeast once you use a compass to know for sure. There are specific degrees which are the cut off points or boundaries for each of the eight basic directions.
Directions in this formula are relevant to the center point of a house, so it is also important to have a to-scale floor plan to work with. Coming up are the best locations for a master bedroom, based on the “sitting” side of the house:
Sitting North/ Best Location is South
Sitting Southwest/Best Location is Northwest
Sitting East/Best location is Southeast
Sitting Southeast/ Best Location is East
Sitting Northwest/ Best Location is Southwest
Sitting West/Best Location is Northeast
Sitting Northeast/ Best Location is West
Sitting South/Best Location is North
As you look over some of these directional suggestions, some of them may not seem like conventional locations for a bedroom. For example, if a house sits south, it would not be that common to have a bedroom in the North sector. That would be the front middle of the house. This is often where the front door is. However, not all houses have a front door which is smack in the middle on the facing side.
Some main doors are on the front wall but not in the middle and some main doors are actually on the side of the house. As well, we might have a front door in the middle on the facing side, but that would not prevent a master bedroom from being placed on a second floor over the same area.
Another detail that Feng Shui practitioners should be aware of is the literal location of the bed. This is the most important area of a master bedroom suite. If the bed is in the best spot, then we care less about pass-through areas of a master bedroom or adjacent closets and bathroom.
To review: what you need to figure this formula out is: 1) an accurate compass reading, 2) an accurate floor plan, 3)a design plan that is flexible enough to change the location of the master bedroom, 4) an understanding of the concept of “sitting” versus “facing” to know for sure the orientation of the house.
I have a Case Study available on my website on the Products page which is called “The Ins and Outs of Sitting and Facing.” It covers just about every consideration you would want to be aware of in determining what really is the sitting side of a house. We call it the back of the house, but Feng Shui has its own criteria for determining what really is the back versus the front. And what if your bedroom is not in the ideal location? I’m happy to say you are not doomed. You can still have a happy marriage based on probably no less than a dozen other Feng Shui features to consider for every unique property.
Author: Kartar Diamond
Company: Feng Shui Solutions ®
From the Feng Shui Theory Blog Series
