Q&A Sunday: Laying a Bagua with Multiple Outside Doors

Thank you for your Holistic Spaces podcast. I’m enjoying it very much. I have a bungalow built in 1919 in South Minneapolis with multiple doorways entering the space. Here is my question: using the floor plan provided, how would you lay the bagua on my home?

Alida, Minneapolis, MN

Door #1: From the sidewalk, a walkway leads up to the deck. If you enter through the steps and deck railings, you are facing east and the front windows.

Door #2: On the deck, you have to turn to face north to actually enter the house. This is the door with a deadbolt.

Once inside that room, you’re in a 3-season porch. Half the year it’s my “sun room” and half the year it’s an unheated “mud room.”

Door #3: To enter the main house, you turn to face east again and walk through another door to enter the living room. I believe this is the original door to the house and that the sunroom was added later. (It has an uncharacteristically large closet and lots of outlets!)

Door #4: a sliding glass door from the kitchen to a back deck.

There is a roof over the porch. I’m attaching a photo of the house and the front door from the yard.

Door #2 leads from the porch into the main house. The porch does not have heating ducts, so it feels separate from the main house. #2 faces the street, albeit through the porch.

 

Hi Alida!

Thanks for all this. All the doors can be (understandably) confusing as to how to layout the bagua. People get stumped by this type of situation frequently. First of all, the qi of the home looks very lush. There is a sense of seclusion. Doors represent the mouth of the inhabitants, therefore the main door is called the “Mouth of Qi.” The mouth of qi determines how qi enters your home. 

Door #2 is indeed the main door, or what we call in feng shui, the Yang door. It’s what the official front door is. So you would lay the bagua as shown here where half of your home is outside the bagua.

Door #1 is a yin door. It’s not really a door, but it is a portal. 

Door #3 is another yin door. I understand you were probably hoping #3 was the yang door.

Door #4 is a back door and can be a yin door if you use this frequently to enter the home (maybe the garage is back there).

In regards to a yin door, you can place a secondary bagua using doors 1 & 2, to glean more insight on your situation.

A practitioner may be able to assist you in how to effectively use the yin bagua layouts to support you further. For instance if you do a bagua adjustment, you can do it on your yang layout, a yin layout, and on your bedroom layout.

With a space that has multiple doors, laying a bagua can be confusing, but it can always be done! My first recommendation of course, for accuracy, is to enlist the help of a feng shui professional. If you would like to make adjustments on your own, I would recommend using the bagua I've laid here or laying the bagua on separate rooms of your home. 

Please do reach out if you decide to lay the bagua on your own and have additional questions!

by Anjie Cho

Thanks for reading our "Q&A Sunday" (formerly “Question of the Month”).  We will be answering questions submitted by our readers.  Click here to submit any Feng Shui or Green Design questions!

Sagging Sofa? Refresh Rather Than Replace.

There’s a time in every day when you want to kick off your shoes and sink into the welcome embrace of your favorite seat in the house. Over time, however, the well-loved and much used couch can show its age. If your once plump and lush sofa is looking more squished and sagging, follow these six steps to bring new life into your favorite seat. 

1. Snap a photo of your sofa.

While it’s always fun to admire your work with a good before/after visual, that’s not our goal here. Having a picture will help you reassemble the couch properly when you’re done. And if you’re going to spice things up with a few new throw pillows, having that snapshot for your designer or with you in the stores will come in handy, too!

2. Remove the seat cushions from the sofa.

The cushions likely have a zipper on the side that faces into the couch. Remove the covers. This is a good time to wash those! Just make sure you follow the directions on the tag. Go the eco-friendly route and air dry the covers outside. While you’ve got everything taken apart, vacuum the foam cushions and the base of your sofa. 

3. Inspect the frame of your sofa.

Is it in good shape? Are the springs looking worse for the wear? You may find the bones of your favorite coach are beyond your abilities to repair. If that’s the case, it might be time to find a new love. However, if the frame just needs a little TLC, one option is to place a sheet of plywood over the base of your seat. This will create a new platform for the cushions to sit on. Cut the platform to fit the base properly. Once you put your cushions back into place, you’ll never know the wood is there. 

4. Plump your back cushions up. 

Use Poly-fil batting and/or quilt batting to plump up the back cushions of your sofa. If the back cushions don’t come off the frame of your couch, they may still have a zipper at their base. That’s when you reach for the Poly-fil. Tuck generous handfuls of fill behind the existing pillow or foam. If you need help, use a ruler to get the stuffing into the corners and edges. Fill each cushion until you achieve your desired level of plump and comfy. 

If you can remove the cushions, wrap the foam with layers of quilt batting. Use spray adhesive to help hold each layer of batting in place. How many layers? That depends on how plush you want your seat and how much space you have between the existing cushion and the seat cover. You want your revitalized cushion to have a tight fit, but it still needs to get in the cover. 

5. Reassemble your sofa. 

Place the now clean and plumped cushions back into place. If you have any extra Poly-fil, freshen up your throw pillows before you place them back into place. Or take your sofa photo shopping, and pick up new throw pillows or fabric to make your own covers for the existing pillows.

6. Kick off your shoes and sink into your renewed, refreshed, favorite seat!

by Anjie Cho

Go Green and Get Happy: The Sill

I'm super excited to chat with some of our new favorite plant people in New York City, the staff at The Sill. Located in the Lower East Side, The Sill is a plant shop dedicated to inspiring people to "bring more of the outdoors in" and helping them do just that! Staying in touch with nature is a huge part of feng shui, a great way to make adjustments and, in general, an all-around excellent decision for your space. Check out what The Sill experts, Erin Marino and Christopher Satch, have to say about bringing some nature inside!

AC: Tell us about The Sill and your approach.

EM / CS: The Sill is very different from other nurseries and florists in that not only do we source only what we consider "easy care" houseplants (no green thumb required!), and design our pots and planters in-house + manufacture them locally in NJ, but we also walk you through plant ownership pre-purchase and continue to be a helpline once you bring your plant home. We are a growing community of people passionate abut plants, and we don't want to just sell you a plant and that be it. We want to help you pick out the perfect one and help you care for it by providing tips and advice, as well as plant diagnostics. You're not alone with your plant when you're with us. 

You list five of the benefits of having houseplants on your website. What would you say is the biggest benefit, and why?

All of those benefits - increase in mood, decrease in stress; cleaner indoor air; increase in productivity + creativity; an enhanced environment; etc. - are great benefits to have, but probably the one that stands out the most to us is that your plant companions are uplifting. They boost your mood and increase a space's aesthetic value. Plants make people happy! We also happen to enjoy the air-cleaning qualities, too. Everyone can use some fresh air, especially in an urban environment like New York City where we're based. 

How do you select plants to offer your shoppers and followers and how do you package these plants? 

In our NYC storefront, or when speaking with our corporate clients, we often ask about the environment in which the plant will be located - How close is it to a window? How much direct sun does it get, if any? What's the care commitment that can be invested into this plant? We don't want to give a high-maintenance plant to someone who's too busy to care for it. And we think that that's where a lot of other companies lag. They'll tell you that you can have whatever you want, and as soon as they have your money, it's goodbye. We not only help you pick the best plant, package it so that it's stable during transport, and doesn't get damaged, but we also want to see it through in its new forever home until it's thriving. 

What are 3 tips for our readers, to bring in some of the Sill philosophy into their holistic spaces?

#1 - Know thy space

Keep a vigilant eye on where the sun is at different points in the day. Where is it in the morning? Midday? Evening? How does this affect my plants? How about my humidity and air flow? Radiators and A/Cs can have a profound effect on a plant that's very close to them! And usually a negative one. 

#2 - Keep in tune with nature

To keep a plant happy and healthy in a house, the goal is to recreate the natural environment as best as possible. We provide information on the origins of the species of plants that we carry. This helps us and our customers place the right plant in their homes that their homes' environment allows for, or help them make the changes to come closer to creating it. 

#3 - Have fun

Enjoy your plant companion and have fun with it.  Decorate your pot, or if your plant is a vine, train it along crazy trellises. Use natural stones or gravel on top of the soil of any color that your heart desires. Horticulture is both an art and a science! Let your artistic side shine and express yourself. 

How does The Sill create a holistic space for itself (and / or for your clients)? 

Since plants make people happy, the more plants, the better! Our shop is covered from floor to ceiling in all sorts of greenery. And not all plants are green! Some come in various shades of every color you can imagine. We know that there is something for everyone, and you don't need a "green thumb" to reap the benefits that come with the presence of plants in a space. 

by Anjie Cho

The Sill brings easy care houseplants direct to your door, order online or shop their Lowest East Side storefront located at 84 Hester Street. Featuring their own line of locally made plant pots and stands, The Sill aims to inspire you to bring more of the outdoors in. 

The Sill was created with a simple ambition – to inspire people to bring more of the outdoors in. Our mission is to make the experience of discovering the perfect plants as wonderful as the plants themselves. The Sill is the source that bridges the gap between plants and people – offering products and services that to fit with your personal style, your lifestyle, and your budget.