The Best Place To Put Your Refrigerator, According To Feng Shui

Your kitchen is the hub of your home, the place you gather with family and friends to prepare meals, the place you start and end your day. As such, it's vital that it not only looks great, but feels great, too. Designing your kitchen can be an overwhelming task, but it can be made much simpler with a guide, like the ancient practice of feng shui.

Through the arrangement of furniture and appliances in your kitchen, you can apply feng shui principles and practices to ensure the optimum flow of chi (or energy), as well as the balance of all five elements and yin and yang energies. This comes down to a few big hitters in your kitchen, and one of the most important is your refrigerator. Your refrigerator is more than a cool place to store food and leftovers, but is significantly representative of health and wealth in not just your kitchen, but your life in general.

One of the biggest tips for placing your refrigerator in your kitchen in accordance with feng shui is to make sure it isn't situated directly across from any doors, whether that's a back patio door or simply a hallway. This is because your refrigerator represents health, and it being placed opposite a doorway can cause the flow of chi to be disrupted, resulting in negative health effects.

Make sure to keep the elements of your refrigerator in mind as well. The primary element that represents this household appliance is metal, but it also has water aspects. This means you should avoid placing your fridge next to your stove, representative of fire, if possible. If not, try to put some sort of buffer between the two. Similarly, if your sink and refrigerator are placed next to one another, this can cause your kitchen to have too much of the water element. The best arrangement for all three items is a triangle, with the fridge and stove on the bottom and facing one another. This also allows you to easily and quickly move around your kitchen while cooking.

The positioning of your refrigerator is important, but it's all for naught if the inside is a mess. Again, the fridge represents health, as well as wealth. A cluttered and messy appliance is only going to inhibit those two areas of life, per feng shui best practices. This means literally cleaning the inside, removing any old or spoiled food, as well as cleaning up any spills or messes.

This, however, doesn't mean your fridge should be spotless. In fact, it's also recommended in feng shui to keep your refrigerator as fully stocked as possible — the appliance represents wealth and abundance, and an empty fridge doesn't. More than that, make sure to keep the outside as clean as possible. Clean off the exterior, and don't forget the back coils. Finally, it's advised that you don't keep magnets or notes on your refrigerator door or exterior. Feng shui principles dictate that clutter of any kind can cause stagnant chi.