Usually, not much thought is given to toilets or bathrooms, especially when it comes to feng shui as they are thought of as “taboo” areas of the home. The more fuddy duddy variety of feng shui master would even go so far as to suggest to make them as small as possible, keep them out of sight, and away from the main house even. Today we have to adjust such feng shui recommendations for modern living, as most of us who like our mod cons don’t see our bathrooms and WCs as places where we flush down waste, but as personal sanctuaries where we retreat to relax. For some of us, the bathroom even rivals the position of favourite room of the house! So how do we reconcile the “taboo” vs “sanctuary” dilemma? Easy… just follow some simple rules.
1. AVOID LOCATING BATHROOM IN NW or SW sector
However nice you make your bathroom, it will still be considered taboo to some degree, so to be safe, keep them away from your two most important sectors: the Northwest and the Southwest. The NW represents the Patriarch and a toilet here flushes down his luck. Similarly with the SW for the Mother, as SW represents the Matriarch.
In feng shui, one always strives to preserve the luck of the Mother and Father, and the good fortune of the rest of the family will follow. As such, locate your WCs away from these two sectors. If you buy a ready built house with a bathroom in the NW or SW, and you cannot change the layout of rooms, then at least spend a bit of money to make sure the toilet bowl itself is not located in the NW or SW of the bathroom (Small Tai Chi).
2. AVOID GOLDEN BATHS & TOILETS
A popular show of ostentatiousness (but mostly heard of only among the really nouveau rich) is to have golden gilded tap fittings, and even toilet bowls. This is not just vulgar, it is BAD feng shui! It doesn’t even have to be real gold for it to bring bad luck, because taps wash things away, and when you line your taps with gold, you symbolically flush or drain away your money luck every time you use your taps. Better to go for regular stainless steel taps, and regular materials like ceramic, plastic or Perspex toilet seats.
3. NO TOILETS ABOVE MAIN DOOR
A design that’s super popular with so many developers is to design a house layout plan where the master bathroom and toilet are directly above a main door. Don’t know how that became a norm with many of the housing developments, but this is a major taboo. What can be worse than having a toilet ruin the feng shui of an auspicious sector? To have the toilet above your most important sector of all – your main door sector!
So always check for this taboo before putting down your down-payment for your new dream house. If you already live in such a house and have been suffering a spate of bad luck after moving in, it is so worth your while to spend the money to make some changes – either to the location of your bathroom, or to your main door. Because this configuration doesn’t just bring bad luck, it can be dangerous.
4. MAKE SURE TOILETS DON’T SHARE WALLS WITH BEDS
When designing your bathroom, make sure your toilet does not share a wall with your bed. It’s OK to have the bedroom right next to the bathroom; that’s called en suite, and the more en suites you have, the higher the value of your house. But just make sure that something less inauspicious shares the other side of your bed wall. Like your mirror, or sink, or bath.
5. MAINTAIN CARPETS WELL IN YOUR BATHROOM
Using tiles for your bathroom is more practical and more low maintenance, but if you’re the type who likes to step out of a bath onto a plush carpeted finish, then make sure you spend some effort to maintain it well. Lay out an effective foot towel for when you step out of the bath so you don’t get your wall-to-wall carpet wet. If your permanent unmovable carpet is allowed to get damp and stay damp, it can create a subtle but foul smell that emits unhealthy chi. And if your carpet has become like that, the advice is to change your carpet. It will be money well spent.
6. BATH CAN BE BIG, TOILET SHOULD BE SMALL
The taboo associated with bathrooms is usually specifically confined to the toilet bowl, so if you have a beautiful big spa-like bathroom, it is OK. Just remember to keep the actual toilet small. It is better to confine the toilet in a small room within the bathroom. This way, the unpleasant smells from the WC don’t get a chance to waft out to the main area of your spa sanctuary.
Keep the door to your WC closed at all times when not in use. Another solution is to keep your toilet out of the bathroom altogether. This may be inconvenient, but it has been done before, and owners of such bathroom/WC arrangements assure us that it works. This way your WC doesn’t intrude into your bath sanctuary at all, leaving you able to enhance and decorate as much as you like without fear of “activating toilet feng shui”.
7. CHOOSE THE RIGHT COLOUR SCHEME
Don’t make your bathroom too yin. Bedrooms are good when slightly more yin than yang, as bedrooms are where you’re meant to rest and catch up on sleep. Bathrooms, although their meant for relaxing, are also where you scrub and cleanse yourself, so it should be a touch more yang than yin. So go for colours that are bright rather than dark. Whites, creams and pastels work a lot better for bathrooms then blacks, maroons and khakis. If you go for a dark colour, make sure the walls contrast nicely by painting them a complementary light colour. As long as you have balance, and the balance is tipped in favour of yang, you should achieve a good colour scheme.
