How Remodeling, Renovating and Landscaping Affects Feng Shui

Feng Shui addresses how we are influenced by our immediate environment, both interiors and exteriors.

Much has been written about how aspects of our close surroundings affect our health, relationships and income potential, just to name a few big-ticket items.  In classical Flying Star Feng Shui, we also factor in when a house or building was built and the directional alignments involved.

However, it’s still unknown to many, that the TIMING of a construction matters and that also extends to remodels, renovations and outside changes. If there is anything negative associated with a project like this, we call it Construction Sha.

Definition of Remodeling, Renovation and Landscaping for Feng Shui

Firstly, we can better define some of these terms.  A “remodel” is a change to a space that could easily include additions or subtractions to the size of a space. For example, adding on a bedroom is a remodel project.  A “renovation” is technically the changes we make to an existing area, such as changing the cabinets and counters in a kitchen, while maintaining the arrangement or at least not changing the location of the kitchen.

Landscape projects can include adding and subtracting features to the outside: plants, shrubs, trees and even land levels. This can also include adding water features.  Changes to a “hardscape” includes the literal hard surfaces, such as any feature made of concrete, plaster, brick or stone: driveway, walkway, stone wall, and things of the like.

Any of these changes will take place in a certain directional zone of the property (like removing or planting a tree in some corner of a lot). These changes may take place within a directional zone of the floor plan, such as renovating a bathroom in the west sector of the house.

For brevity’s sake, we’ll just refer to all of these types of changes as a “remodel” throughout the rest of this article. The extent of the remodel in terms of how significant it is and how many directional zones it involves can all be taken into consideration with regards to timing.  It is the coordination of direction and timing which is at the heart of classical Feng Shui and that is why people ask professionals like myself when it is the best time to proceed with these projects.

Is there a Bad Timing to Remodel in Terms of Feng Shui?

And what if the remodel projects take place in bad timing?  Over the decades, I have seen these principles challenged and the poorly timed project could result in injuries to the occupants and workers, as well as other aggravations with the project being delayed or complications emerging. Doing a remodel project is stressful enough. We don’t want to add any more problems than those that naturally come with these types of projects.

We can initially look at the yearly energy and see if it supports a disturbance to that area or if we are going to “poke the bear” and should reconsider.  For example, in 2024, the Year of the Dragon, the direction of East/ Southeast (113-127 degrees) will be a vulnerable area. There will be several other directions, as there are several each year, which can be equally precarious for construction projects.

If it is not an emergency, it might be best to postpone working on that part of the house.  However, in the name of practicality, sometimes we have no choice but to disturb these agitated areas.

And sometimes we have even less control, such as when a neighbor is doing a big project directly aligned with our personal space.

When we do have control, we can also try to mitigate the poor annual cycle by starting a project in one of the best months, as opposed to compounding the potential problems by starting in a bad month.

The Basics on Calculating the Best Feng Shui Timing for Remodeling

Each year, there are several bad months and those can be calculated in advance as well.  Just like yearly cycles which repeat every 12 years, there are monthly cycles that repeat in an orderly, predictable way as well.

Within each monthly cycle we can also uniquely look at the floor plan and determine what Feng Shui monthly cycles collide with the Construction Sha cycles.  We might find that the monthly energy is okay within a certain year, but then the actual house may have a monthly 5 star in the area we want to remodel.  The 5 star is associated with accidents and delays. In 2024, the 5 star will be hanging out in the west sector.  All of these directional references need to be precise.  This is why it is imperative to have an accurate floor plan and to use a compass.

Through a process of elimination, we can in fact find an ideal time or several back-up choices for best year, best month and even best day to start a demolition.  It is also mostly about the START date and not the continuing days, weeks and months.

To really micro-manage the timing of a project, we can even look at the hour in which it is scheduled to start.  For example, regardless of the annual, monthly or daily cycles, each person has their own lucky and unlucky times of day.  A person born in the year of the Rooster opposes the Rabbit.  The double Rabbit hours are from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.  For the owner of the property, it would not be good to start a demolition during a time frame that is draining for them and which can be annoying.

Combining More Feng Shui Aspects to a Remodeling Project

We can combine more Feng Shui aspects to any remodel project with the Eight Basic Directions representing people and certain body areas.  For example: rip apart the southwest portion of your home in bad timing and that could adversely affect an occupant born in 1962, 1971, 1980 or anyone who is the Kun trigram.  Beyond literal birth dates, if the southwest is demolished in poor timing, it could also negatively affect any occupant in the areas of digestion and could be especially harsh on the eldest woman in the house or the mother.

Even though it may seem tedious or too restrictive to figure out these best timing cycles, with enough advance notice it can be done fairly easily and is worth it.  As well, there are compensating things one can do if the timing is not perfect. This includes selecting a good month, day or hour to begin if the yearly energy is shaky.  There are also Feng Shui remedies one can employ directly in the precarious zones, to help calm down the agitated energy.

With my own client base, people get forewarned well in advance each year in their Annual Update Report regarding which directions to be aware of and avoid making big changes to. This information is doled out just one year at a time in the annual update report.  However, I also have a separate service called the GTPC Report, which gives a person perpetual calendars to use (literally for decades) to plan their own remodel projects and achieve the best results and the least amount of stress!