Beware the 'Divorce House'

Before you delve too deeply into this article, I just want to remind you that with Feng Shui, the nasty energy which hangs about in some homes can be resolved – as long as you know what you are doing.

Recently I spent a day viewing houses with a couple who are looking for their ‘forever home’. They are moving out of the city to a country town where their money goes significantly further, giving them the capacity to take a big step up.

The couple are at the start of their process and weren’t at the stage of having a feng shui assessment done on any specific property – they just wanted me to go along and give them a detached perspective. Someone who could talk them through the pros and cons of each potential home. They had previously fallen in love with a place which was very wrong for them and didn’t want to repeat the mistake.

Which leads me to the ‘divorce house’.

This place, on paper, gave them everything they wanted and much more.

Six spacious bedrooms, a period property on a quiet road and original architectural features in abundance. The kitchen was clearly expensive, although not to their taste (FYI very dark blues and greys drain light and positivity from most spaces and often lead to ‘buyer’s remorse’).

If it had been located on the street where they live in the city, this place would have set them back in excess of £2.5million. Here a mortgage would be unnecessary.

My couple were racing about excitedly, gasping at the fireplaces, testing the water pressure in the multiple ensuites. Mentally they had moved in, were unpacking their boxes and drinking champagne on the terrace.

They weren’t seeing the red flags in every part of the home!

So what did they miss?

• Walking in there had been a perceptible tension and heaviness. If you feel a wave of nausea as you walk into a space, that’s your body alerting you to the energy.

• The property had a side return which meant the Southwest (Love and Relationships) and the West (new beginnings and opportunities) feng shui guas were missing

• Everywhere in the house were ‘solo’ items; a single bedside table in the master suite, solo subjects in art and a very angry abstract painting which looked like a nightmare brought to life on canvas.

• Some of the walls were missing photos, half of the dressing room was empty. There were many other markers for an unhappy home.

There was no question in my mind that the current occupants, although purported to be ‘a family planning to upsize’, were actually in the midst of a breakup.

A surreptitious check of property sales records, showed the house had been bought and sold three times in the past decade, with the current owners moving in only 18 months earlier.

It was going to need some significant feng shui intervention to work for my lovely clients.

Popping the ‘bliss bubble’ of love-at-first-sight excitement felt terrible, but my clients brought me in for precisely this reason.

Fortunately the agent, sensing a sale, was willing to extend the viewing to allow us to talk through the issues and come up with some potential solutions.

Firstly, the clients had already decided the almost-new dark blue kitchen would have to go. Understanding the upheaval this would cause, they were very open to extending the kitchen into the side return to create a much brighter, spacious kitchen/utility/diner which would also give them the option to open the room to the garden. This would resolve the issue of the missing areas at ground floor level. Phew! If they could accomplish this before they moved in, it would make a world of difference.

Had extending not been financially viable, we would have used an alternative and almost free feng shui solution, but in this particular situation, the extension was an excellent option!

Next we discussed relocating the master bedroom away from the current unsupportive location and into a more auspicious first floor room. This was a simple solution which made total sense.

A deep red feature wall was an easy win to decorate out. You could almost cut the air with a knife in the room, so giving it a total energetic makeover was going to be essential.

My clients were now able to see the property with clarity and understand what it would require to bring it into balance. They don’t want their marriage to go the same way as those of the three previous owners and they have used feng shui in the past to boost their own relationship.

The next step was to have the outline feng shui done, something offered with our 'Find a wonderful new home' package. This confirmed the property was ‘Good for Money’ but ‘Bad for People’ – well who knew eh?

For my clients, the place is still high on the ‘potentials’ list, but they would buy it with their eyes open, so it’s not keeping them awake at night.

They know what to do to bring balance and harmony into this desperately unhappy home, and they also know it’s going to be auspicious financially if they ultimately make the decision to buy.

If you’re property hunting, the 'Find a wonderful new home package' gives you a downloadable outline of what to look out for and key things to avoid (some might surprise you!) The package includes two Feng Shui 'house type' reports to help you make an informed decision on what you are buying.

If you’ve already moved into a home which has turned your life upside down in a bad way – book a mini consultation to discuss the most cost effective and permanent solutions to bring the home to a supportive energetic standard.