The Ultimate Guide: 15 Common Feng Shui Things to Avoid for a Harmonious Home

Have you ever walked into your own home and felt that something was just… off? This is a common experience, and it often points to a disruption in your home's energy.

Feng Shui is the ancient art of creating balance and harmony between you and your environment. It's all about optimizing the flow of life force energy, known as Chi (or Qi), to support your well-being, success, and happiness.

Often, the most powerful and immediate improvements come not from adding new things, but from removing the negative influences that block good energy. Some of the most common mistakes include tolerating clutter, blocking pathways with furniture, and improper mirror placement.

This guide will walk you through the most critical feng shui things to avoid. More importantly, we'll provide the best feng shui tips to correct these issues, empowering you to transform your space into a sanctuary of positive energy.

Foundational Feng Shui Mistakes

These are the universal errors that disrupt Chi in any home, regardless of its size or layout. Addressing these five foundational points will create the biggest positive shift in your space.

Tolerating Clutter

• The Mistake: Allowing piles of mail, disorganized closets, overstuffed drawers, and general clutter to accumulate.
• Why It's a Problem: Clutter is the number one enemy of good Feng Shui. It creates stagnant, heavy energy that blocks the flow of Chi, leading to feelings of frustration, confusion, and being stuck in the past. According to the fundamental principles of Feng Shui, clear space allows energy and opportunity to move freely.
• The Fix: Commit to decluttering one small area at a time. Start with a single drawer, a countertop, or a bookshelf. The goal is to create physical and energetic space for new, positive things to enter your life.

Keeping Broken Things

• The Mistake: Holding onto chipped mugs, broken appliances, cracked picture frames, or furniture that needs repair. This also includes dead or dying houseplants.
• Why It's a Problem: Broken items symbolize and attract brokenness into your life—in your health, finances, or relationships. Dead plants represent draining, decaying energy. Even dried flowers, while beautiful to some, are considered a form of dead energy in classical Feng Shui and are best avoided in key areas like the bedroom.
• The Fix: Adopt a simple rule: either fix it immediately or get rid of it. Replace dying plants with vibrant, living ones to introduce fresh, vital energy into your home.

Improper Mirror Use

• The Mistake: Placing mirrors in positions that create negative energy.
• Why It's a Problem: Mirrors are powerful Feng Shui tools that can double energy, but this can be for better or for worse.
  • Facing the front door: A mirror directly facing the main entrance pushes all the good Chi that enters right back out.
  • Facing the bed: This disrupts sleep by bouncing too much active energy around the room and can even be said to invite third-party interference in a relationship.
  • Reflecting clutter: A mirror reflecting a messy area or an unpleasant view (like a trash bin) will literally double that negative energy in your space.
• The Fix: Position mirrors to reflect something beautiful, like a window with a lovely view, a piece of art, or a dining table to double the feeling of abundance. Never place them directly opposite a door or your bed.

Blocking Pathways and Doors

• The Mistake: Obstructing the natural flow of movement with furniture, shoe piles, or storage boxes.
• Why It's a Problem: Your front door is called the "Mouth of Chi," where all opportunities and energy enter your home. If this area is blocked, you're symbolically blocking good things from coming to you. The same applies to interior pathways; blocked hallways create frustration and stagnant energy.
• The Fix: Ensure your front door can open a full 90 degrees without obstruction. Keep the entryway clear and inviting. Walk through your home and ensure you can move from room to room easily, without having to squeeze past furniture.

Neglecting The Five Elements

• The Mistake: Having a room that is dominated by only one or two of the five elements, creating a significant imbalance.
• Why It's a Problem: Feng Shui seeks balance through the interplay of five key elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. A room that is all white and metal, for example, can feel cold and sterile. A room with too much wood can feel overwhelming.
• The Fix: Intentionally incorporate all five elements into your main living spaces. You don't need to redesign your entire home; small additions can make a huge difference. Use this table to easily identify the elements.

Room-by-Room Rescue

Certain rooms have a greater impact on our well-being. Here are the critical "don'ts" for the most important spaces in your home, ensuring they support rather than drain you.

In the Bedroom

Your bedroom is for rest and rejuvenation. Its energy should be passive, soft, and nourishing (Yin). Avoid introducing active, stimulating (Yang) energy here.

1. Bed Placement Errors: Never place your bed in the "coffin position," where your feet point directly out the door. This is considered the most inauspicious placement. Also, avoid placing your bed directly under a window, which lacks the supportive energy of a solid wall, or with the headboard against a wall shared with a bathroom. Instead, aim for the "command position", where you can see the door from your bed without being directly in line with it.

2. Having a Water Feature: Avoid fountains, aquariums, or even large images of water (like ocean scenes) in the bedroom. Water is a very active, Yang element that can introduce worry and restlessness into a space meant for calm, disrupting sleep.

3. Keeping Electronics Near Bed: The constant hum and blue light from phones, tablets, and TVs create disruptive energy that interferes with your body's ability to rest deeply. This mental and electrical "noise" keeps your own energy field activated when it should be powering down.

In the Kitchen

The kitchen is the heart of the home, governing nourishment and, by extension, your health and wealth.

1. Stove and Sink in Opposition: A common mistake in modern kitchen layouts is placing the stove (Fire element) directly opposite or right next to the sink (Water element). This creates a direct clash of elements, which can lead to arguments and conflict within the family. If you can't move them, place a Wood element (like a small plant or a green rug) between them to mediate the conflict.

2. A Dirty or Cluttered Stove: In Feng Shui, your stove is a symbol of abundance in feng shui. Each burner represents a source of wealth. A dirty, cluttered, or unused stove signifies a neglect of your wealth and resources. Keep it sparkling clean and use all the burners in rotation to activate your prosperity.

In the Living Room

This space represents how you connect with the world and how opportunities flow to you. It should be welcoming and allow for smooth energy circulation.

1. Furniture with "Poison Arrows": "Poison arrows" (or Sha Chi) are sharp corners from furniture, walls, or even pillars that point directly at where you sit. As feng shui expert Anjie Cho shares, these sharp angles create an aggressive, "attacking" energy that can cause discomfort and unease. Avoid square coffee tables with sharp corners pointed at the sofa. Opt for round or oval tables, or soften the corners with a plant or throw blanket.

2. Backs to the Door: Arranging sofas or chairs so that your back is to the main entrance of the room can create a subconscious feeling of vulnerability. You can't see who or what is coming, which prevents you from fully relaxing. If you can't avoid it, place a mirror so that you can see the reflection of the doorway from your seat.

Modern Feng Shui Mistakes

Ancient wisdom is timeless, but our modern lifestyles present new challenges. Applying Feng Shui principles to today's technology and home layouts is crucial for maintaining harmony.

The Wrong Router Place

Wi-Fi routers emit a constant stream of high-frequency, chaotic energy. While essential for modern life, this energy is disruptive to rest and a sense of calm.

Avoid placing your router in the bedroom at all costs. It's also unwise to place it in the center of your home, which corresponds to the Health area in the Bagua map, as this can create a constant source of energetic agitation at the core of your home's well-being.

Ignoring Open-Plan Energy

Open-plan living is popular, but it can create Feng Shui challenges. Without walls to guide it, Chi can flow through the space too quickly, making it feel unsettled and chaotic. Energy from different life areas (like work from the kitchen island and relaxation in the lounge) gets jumbled.

In a client's open-plan apartment, we observed that energy felt scattered. By using a large rug to define the living area and a strategically placed plant to slow the Chi between the kitchen and lounge, we created distinct, harmonious zones without building walls. This simple fix made the space feel instantly more grounded and calm.

The "Doom Scroll" Corner

This is a modern form of energetic clutter. Many of us have a specific corner of the sofa or a favorite chair where we habitually scroll through stressful news, work emails, or social media comparisons.

Over time, this spot accumulates a heavy, negative energy associated with anxiety and stress. You are essentially creating a "bad vibe" corner in your own home. Make a conscious effort to break this habit or create a new, positive association with that space, like reading a book or listening to music there instead.

Forgetting a Home Office

With the rise of remote work, many homes now double as offices. A major mistake is setting up your desk in your bedroom. This merges active, stressful work energy with the passive, restful energy required for sleep.

It can lead to insomnia, burnout, and an inability to "switch off." If a separate room isn't possible, try to create a distinct work zone that can be screened off or packed away at the end of the day. This is essential to create a more productive and supportive workspace while protecting your personal sanctuary.

From "Avoid" to "Activate"

Now that you know what to remove, let's focus on two powerful concepts to proactively improve your home's energy. Moving from avoiding negatives to activating positives is where the real magic happens.

Embrace Command Position

The command position is one of the most important principles in Feng Shui. It means positioning the key pieces of furniture—your bed, your desk, and your main sofa—so that you are facing the door to the room without being directly in line with it.

This placement gives you a clear view of anyone or anything entering your space, fostering a subconscious sense of safety, control, and awareness. You are in "command" of your life and ready to receive opportunities, rather than being surprised by them.

A Simple Bagua Intro

The Bagua is the energy map of your home, connecting different areas of your space to different areas of your life (like Wealth, Relationships, and Career). It can seem complex, so don't feel you need to master it all at once.

A simple way to start is to identify one or two life areas you want to improve. To find the Wealth & Abundance area, stand at the front door of your home (or a single room) looking in; it is the corner in the far back left. A simple and powerful enhancement for this area is to place a healthy, vibrant plant there to symbolize growth and prosperity.

Your Home's Reflection

Your home is a living reflection of your inner world. By clearing out the things that create negative or stagnant energy, you are doing more than just tidying up; you are making a powerful statement that you are ready for positive change.

Start small. Address the clutter, fix that broken item, or simply adjust your bed's placement. Feng Shui is a journey, not a destination. Each small adjustment you make sends a ripple of positive energy through your space and your life. By clearing out the old, you are making room for new energy, new opportunities, and a more harmonious existence to flow in.