Feng Shui Kitchen – The Ten Kitchen Commandments
Posted on 02. Sep, 2011 by admin in Feng Shui Kitchen
In last week’s blog I looked at Feng Shui kitchen tips placing a special emphasis on the oven, the focal point of the kitchen. In this week’s blog I am going to continue with the kitchen theme, this time covering some of the more general points that you should consider when decorating or using the kitchen in your home. Below are my top ten Kitchen Commandments to ensure the energy in your kitchen flows in harmony, strengthening the health and well being of everyone in your home.
Commandment 1
Your Kitchen should be filled with light
A light and airy kitchen fills the occupants of the home with joy, ensuring that the kitchen is a place in which people want to linger. The longer we spend in the kitchen the more likely we are to take care and attention over the meals that we prepare and cook. If your kitchen is in a small room or is narrow and dark you can easily lighten the space by adding lights, mirrors or by painting the walls or cupboards in a light colour. Excellent colours for the walls in a kitchen are white, cream or pale green, the white and cream will automatically lighten the space whilst green brings in the wood element, an important element that helps bring balance to the kitchen.
Commandment 2
Your Kitchen should not be like an obstacle course
For energy to flow in harmony around your kitchen it should not encounter obstacles. The square design of kitchen furniture and appliances often make the kitchen a sharp room filled with angles that may not necessarily promote positive chi. We should therefore not create more problems by placing tables, island units and butchers blocks slap bang in the middle of the kitchen floor. If we do have items blocking the centre of the kitchen we may find that positive energy is blocked from flowing around the kitchen and we may find that we have difficulty in digesting our food.
Commandment 3
Your Kitchen should not be filled with poison arrows
In tandem with the point above, the nature of much kitchen furniture means that we may find one or two poison arrows in place in the kitchen. Poison arrows are angles that point outwards at 90 degrees and can cause energy to be disruptive in the area in which it is pointing. The best cure for a poison arrow is to disguise or hide it, we have one in our kitchen in France where the run of units end at the French doors and we have placed a large tub of herbs on the floor to hide the arrow as much as possible.
Commandment 4
Your Kitchen should not be seen from the front door
If your kitchen can be seen from the front door you are more likely to walk in to the kitchen when you enter your home and, if you are like me, head straight for the fridge. Ideally your kitchen should be well away from your front door. This however is easier said, or in this case written, than done. Assuming your kitchen can be seen from your front door and you do not want to completely remodel your home there is a very simple cure which is to keep the kitchen door shut. Proving my point that Feng Shui really doesn’t have to be complicated.
There is a greater problem caused when the kitchen is the first room that you enter. When we first moved to France we rented a house for six months in which the front door led directly in to the kitchen. How I struggled with my weight in that house. Eventually when I’d taken my head out of the fridge for long enough to acknowledge that there was a problem, I decided to do something about it. I created a defined pathway through the kitchen towards the living room using plants, a rug and by moving a small bookcase. This made walking towards the living room a natural act when entering the house. I further enhanced this movement away from the kitchen by placing a statue of a god in the entrance to the living room to try and draw my eyes and my feet away from the fridge.
Commandment 5
Your Kitchen should be free of clutter
If truth be told, your whole house should be free of clutter. It is worth mentioning specifically with the kitchen in mind however as the kitchen, more than many other rooms, has a tendency to accumulate clutter. Many people make the mistake of thinking that clutter is rubbish, or stuff that you don’t need, but it isn’t. Clutter is anything that you don’t need right now. In the kitchen that includes weighing scales, the toaster, the empty fruit bowl, the pots draining by the sink, the bank statements that you have opened and put next to the fridge ready to be filed away sometime in the never never (ok, that last one may relate specifically to our kitchen and my partners annoying habit of thinking that the post lives next to the fridge but you get the idea). If you don’t need it right now then put it away until you do need it. Who wants to work in a kitchen where you are continually having to fight for workspace with an assortment of unused kitchen utensils?
Commandment 6
Your Kitchen should not create a surprise for the cook
Not even a pleasant one! When the cook is spending time preparing a meal they do not want to feel insecure, or not know what is going on behind their back. Ideally then when the cook is at the hob they should have an uninterrupted view of the door in to the kitchen. If the placement of your hob means that the cook has their back to the door you will need to place a mirror, or reflective screen on the wall at the back of the hob so that the cook can see behind them at all times when they are cooking.
Commandment 7
Your Kitchen should promote positive energy
As I said in my blog last week the kitchen can be a hotbed of destructive energy if we do not take care to balance the oven (fire energy) with the many water based appliances in the kitchen. A great way of balancing the energy and promoting positive chi is to add the wood element in to your kitchen. Adding wood creates a positive and harmonious link between water and fire. You can easily achieve this balance and harmony by such simple actions as adding wood units, painting your kitchen walls green, adding green crockery or introducing broad leaved plants in to the kitchen.
Commandment 8
Your Kitchen’s main purpose should be the preparing and cooking of food
In our modern day homes quite often rooms are used for a number of different purposes. In the UK and France it is very common for homes to have large kitchen cum dining areas. If this is the case in your home it is important that you create two very distinct areas. If you do not clearly define your kitchen space, which is after all one of the most important areas of your home, you are at risk of losing or diluting some of the benefits that this area brings. Meal preparation may end up being rushed or not taken care of, work surfaces may end up being used as storage areas and the cook’s attention may not be focused solely on cooking. A barrier with plants or a decorative screen can work well as a room divider or if this is not practical using two different but complimentary colour schemes in the two areas of the room can create the effect of two different areas.
Commandment 9
Your Kitchen should ideally have the oven, fridge and sink at the three auspicious points.
If you think of the points of a triangle, the oven, as the focal point should be at the top with the fridge and the sink at the other two points. This helps to create a harmonious flow of energy around your kitchen and ensures that natural barriers are in place between the fire and main water elements.
Commandment 10
Your Kitchen should always be kept clean and fresh
For positive energy to thrive it is important that your home is kept clean, fresh, well maintained and in good decorative order. In the kitchen this means that the floors, worktops and appliances should be kept free of crumbs and stains, the hob and appliances should be kept in good working order with any broken items quickly replaced, and old cooking smells should be got rid of as soon as possible. A good and completely natural way of getting rid of smells is to keep herbs and spices around the kitchen as they give out wonderful fresh kitcheny smells, and to display a vase of freshly cut flowers on your windowsill. In addition to our tub of herbs we also through the winter move our lemon tree in to the kitchen which gives out a wonderful citrus sweet smell
I hope that you have enjoyed reading my ten kitchen commandments and in conjunction with last week’s blog it has given you some useful information which you can use in your own kitchen.
