Guides · Practice · 14 min read · Updated September 2026

Feng shui in a day

The order of work. Eight stations on one flat, from the front door inward, in the order the tradition reads a house and the order each decision constrains the next. What can be done between breakfast and dinner with a tape measure and a plan, the one page to write at the end of it, and what should not be attempted in a day at all.

Oriented S 177°

Fire

Fig. 01 A table by a window. Most of what the tradition asks can be done in a day with the furniture a house already has.

The tradition reads a house in an order, from the outside in and from the door to the bed, and the order is also a working day. This guide walks it: eight stations, each a decision that the next depends on, with the page that explains each one a link away. It assumes a plan of the flat, a tape measure and a free day. It does not assume a compass, a budget or a shop.

The order

Plan 01 The order of work: eight stations on one flat, numbered in the order the tradition reads a house One, the front door, outside and in. Two, the line from the door through the flat, drawn ghosted, and the screen across it, drawn solid. Three, the bed. Four, the desk. Five, the seats. Six, the windows, for light and air. Seven, the stove. Eight, the floor, and the five places clutter lands. The numbers are the order in which each decision constrains the next; the line under the plan is the same order as a day.

The route in the drawing is the tradition’s order of reading and the site’s order of writing. The door first, because everything enters there. The line through the house second, because it decides where a screen goes before any furniture does. The bed third, because it is the room the tradition cares about most and the one whose position is least negotiable. The desk fourth and the seats fifth, the two other places a body rests. The windows sixth, because light and air are conditions the furniture has to obey. The stove seventh, the one fixed thing in the kitchen. The floor last, because clearing it is the only step that can be done at any time and is therefore always done last.

Morning: the door and the line

Stand in the street and look at the door. Is anything aimed at it, a road, a corner, a post? Is it visible, lit, distinguished from the wall? Then stand on the threshold and look in: what is the first thing seen, and where does the eye stop? The front door and entrance pages give the tests; the sha catalogue names the faults. The morning’s work is usually a lamp, a hook for keys, a clear floor inside the door, and, if the door faces a window straight through, a screen, a plant or a curtain across the line.

Midday: bed, desk, seats

The three places a body rests are the three places the command position applies, and the middle of the day goes to them. The bed gets a solid wall behind its head, the door in view and not in its line; the bed placement guide draws the room where all three cannot be had. The desk gets the wall behind the chair, the door in view and the window at the side; the desk placement guide draws the four rooms that are not studies. The seats get their backs covered and each other in view; the living room page draws the three plans. Moving a bed is an hour; moving it back, if the room says no, is another. Everything else at this station is a chair turned or a table moved.

Afternoon: windows, stove, floor

The afternoon starts at the windows, and the work is the tradition’s morning rule made permanent: curtains that close, a window that opens, a door that gives the room two ends; the windows guide draws the air. The stove comes next, the one fixed thing in the kitchen, and it is read rather than moved: is the cook’s back to the door, and is the sink beside the hob? The kitchen page gives the mirror and the worktop that answer both. The floor comes last, and it is the work the tradition would do first if it could: the door’s swing, the path, under the bed, the sills and the surfaces, cleared. The clutter guide marks the five places on a plan.

The flat at the two ends of the day, with nothing bought in between:

Fig. 02 One flat, morning and evening. In the morning the front door opens onto a line that runs through the hall to the window at its end; the bed lies in that line under the bedroom window; the desk faces the wall with the sitter’s back to the door; the sofa floats in the middle of the living room with its back to the entrance; and the floor by the door, under the bed and along the hall carries what the household has set down. In the evening the same things are in the places the eight stations give them: a screen and a plant a step inside the door break the line; the bed has the solid wall behind its head and the door in view; the desk has the wall behind the chair and the window at its side; the sofa has its back to the wall and the door in sight; the windows have curtains and can open; the stove is unchanged, read rather than moved; and the floor is clear. Nothing in the evening plan was bought. The screen is the one object, and a bookcase does its work. The hours are the guide’s: the door and the line in the morning, the three resting places at midday, the windows, the stove and the floor in the afternoon.

Evening: the page

Fig. 03 The page the day ends on, filled in with the worked reading’s entries as an example. At the top, the four facts a reading rests on and a practitioner would ask for first: the facing in degrees and as a mountain, taken from the side the flat opens to and read twice; the sitting, its opposite; the period, from the year the building was finished; and the kua of each sleeper, from the years of birth, which the Compass schools use and the Form reading does not. Then the plan, drawn at a scale, with the centre found and the eight sectors ruled from it, which is where the compass schools’ readings are laid if the household wants them. Then the three findings in order of weight, the bed before the door and the door before the stove, each a line; the remedies in order of cost, with the free ones first and the trade’s name for the rest; and, at the foot, what could not be fixed, which for this flat is nothing and for some flats is the reason to move. A household that keeps this page can read its own next flat, hand it to the next practitioner, and see in a year what changed. The sheet is the site’s, made from the order the practitioner manuals keep and the report the hiring guide says a client should receive. A reading without a page like this one was a conversation.

The day ends at a table with a page, and the page is the part of the reading that lasts. The tradition’s practitioner ended a visit in writing, a description of the site, a judgement and a prescription, and the hiring a practitioner guide gives what a paid report should contain; a household that has read its own flat owes itself the same page, and the drawing above gives it, filled in with the worked reading’s entries as an example. Four facts go at the top, whether or not the household means to use the compass schools: the facing in degrees and as a mountain, taken from the side the flat opens to and read twice, which the facing direction guide walks through; the sitting, its opposite; the period, from the year the building was finished; and the kua of each sleeper from the years of birth, which the Eight Mansions calculator gives in a second. They cost ten minutes and they are the ten minutes a practitioner would charge for. Then the plan, drawn at one to fifty as the drawing your plan guide shows, with the balance point found and the eight sectors ruled from it, the bed, the desk and the stove marked, and the doors and windows drawn; the compass reading and, if the household built one with the Flying Stars essay’s tool, the chart are attached to it. Then the three findings of the day in order of weight, the bed before the door and the door before the stove, each in a line, because a finding that takes a paragraph is not yet a finding. Then the remedies in order of cost, the free ones first, a bed moved, a chair turned, a floor cleared, and the trade’s name against the rest, a screen, a joiner, a curtain rod, so that the household can see what its flat asks of it in money, which is usually little. And at the foot, what could not be fixed, which for most flats is nothing and for a few is the line the choosing a home guide says to read twice. The page is kept with the plan, read again in a year to see what changed, and handed to the next reader of the flat, who may be the household in its next home or the buyer the selling guide describes. A reading without it was a conversation, and the tradition did not count conversations.

The day, in minutes

Fig. 04 The day, in minutes. The eight stations of the route laid on a bar from nine in the morning to six, each block the length the station takes for a flat of two bedrooms with two people working: the door and its line in the first hour and a half, the bed the long block before lunch, the desk and the seats after it, the windows and the stove in the afternoon, the floor last, and the page, the evening’s writing of what was done and what was left, at the end. Two breaks are drawn because the day needs them: the bed alone is ninety minutes of moving a heavy thing and remaking it, and a household that runs the route without stopping does the floor badly. Nothing on the bar needs a purchase, a drill or a second day, and the two things the guide says not to do in a day, the compass and the shopping, are not on it. Times are the site’s from the guides’ own procedures, for a two-bedroom flat and two pairs of hands; a studio takes a morning, a house with stairs takes the day and the floor waits for the next.

The route has an order and the bar above gives it a clock, for a flat of two bedrooms with two pairs of hands, because a day that is not budgeted ends with the floor undone and the page unwritten. The door and its line take the first hour and a half: a quarter of an hour to stand in the door and look, a quarter to walk the line through the flat with the entrance page in hand, and an hour to hang the curtain or stand the screen that the line asks for. The bed is the long block, ninety minutes, and it is long because it is the bed placement guide’s whole procedure with a heavy thing in it: the wall chosen, the bed pulled out, the floor under it cleaned, the bed set with its head to the wall and the door in view, the tables and the lamps back, the bed made; a household that gives the bed less does it twice. The desk is forty-five minutes and the seats an hour, the seats longer because a sofa and two chairs are three things to move and a rug to lay; the windows are forty-five minutes of opening, cleaning and moving whatever stands in them; the stove half an hour, since it does not move and the work is the wall behind the cook and the things over the hob. The floor is the last hour and it is an hour only because the day’s route has already lifted most of what was on it. The page, forty-five minutes in the evening, is the reading record the guide asks for and the part most households skip, which is why the bar draws it in a different tone. Two breaks are on the bar because the day needs them, and two things are off it because the day cannot hold them: the compass reading, which wants a clear head and a second visit, and the shopping, which the next section forbids. A studio does the bar in a morning; a house with stairs does it in a day and gives the floor to the next.

What not to do in a day

The other thing not to attempt in a day is the compass. Finding a facing direction is a morning’s work in itself and the facing direction guide gives it; applying a kua or a Flying Star chart to a plan is a week’s reading before it is an afternoon’s furniture. The tradition applies the compass after the plan, never instead of it, and a reader who has done the eight stations has done what every school agrees on before any school disagrees.

Checklist

Outside: nothing aimed at the door; the door visible and lit
Inside the door: a lamp, a hook, a clear floor, and the line through the house broken
Bed: wall behind, door in view, not in its line; nothing over the head, nothing under
Desk: wall behind the chair, door in view, window at the side
Seats: backs covered, each other in view, the screen second
Windows: curtains that close, a window that opens, the room given two ends
Stove: the cook not with their back to the door; the sink a worktop away
Floor: the door’s swing, the path, under the bed, the sills and the surfaces cleared
Bought: nothing