by Kartar Diamond

The kitchen is still sometimes referred to as the "hearth of the home." In older, traditional floor plans, it indicated the back part of a house, literally as well as from a feng shui perspective. Although that is not always true anymore. Kitchens are now often prominent in the front part of a house.

In the olden days, wealthy people would leave the kitchen relatively raw. The wealthier they were, the less time they would be in the kitchen themselves; rather, servants would do all the food prep. Nowadays, people spend thousands of dollars remodeling kitchens that they barely use!

Since the stove is an integral part of the kitchen, it represents the fire element and the location of a kitchen for feng shui purposes can indicate some of the family dynamics.

As an example, the direction of northwest is associated with the metal element. Fire (from the stove or oven) can symbolically melt metal; therefore, the kitchen in the northwest part of a house (or apartment) can put pressure in that area-which emanates throughout the entire house. What it can do, specifically, is cause the father in the house to have a lot of pressure on him and/or his children may be disobedient or rebellious.

When there is a kitchen in the center of the house, it will excite whatever kinds of energies exist there. The vast majority of houses should not have the fire element in the very center of the house.

At the same time, there are a lot of "feng shui kitchen myths," which have made people panic for nothing. Some of those superstitions include:

A. Having a sink opposite a stove is a clash of water and fire. FALSE. While it is true that water and fire clash, the sink is not really the water element most of the time. Their proximity to each other in the kitchen layout should not be cause for alarm.

B. The kitchen should only be in the south part of the house. FALSE. This is too rigid. It is true that the direction of South is inherently related to the fire element, but that does not at all mean it is the only good direction for a kitchen. Each house is unique.

C. The cook should not have their back to the entrance of the kitchen. FALSE. While this myth almost makes sense from a practical standpoint (the cook should not be disturbed or surprised from behind them=accidents), I have yet to correlate anyone specifically having frequent kitchen accidents just because of this common floor plan arrangement.

D. If you put a mirror on the wall that the stove is up against, it will reflect double the food being prepared and that brings wealth. FALSE. I have had a number of clients try this, only to be frustrated with the amount of grease splatters on the mirror, looking weird and not increasing their wealth.


The truth is that there is no rigid formula regarding where a kitchen should be located or what color scheme it should adhere to. What is generally true however, is that the immediate sight of a kitchen upon entering a home can lead to a Pavlovian response to eat whether hungry or not.

 

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