Vastulogy for your home

In the tradition the north-east is the corner for prayer and water, so a toilet or a staircase there is the placement guides most often mark down. How serious it is depends on whom you ask: some call it a major fault, others a reason to adjust a few habits. Narayani looks first at how the space is used, then at what can be rearranged without building work. Sometimes the right call is to leave it as it is.

Most modern guides say north, east or north-east. One guide calls a south-facing door fine and another rates a south road poor, while the Brihat Samhita lists outcomes square by square along each side and names no single best one. So the sources give no settled answer. Many homes face the road they were built on, and Narayani looks at what you can still change: how the door is lit, what stands opposite it, and how the entrance feels to come home to.

Nobody can give you a figure, and anyone who does is guessing. A home affects how you sleep, work and rest, through light, air, noise, comfort and how well it suits the people in it. Whether a room’s direction adds anything beyond that is the question the health section above takes up. Narayani puts no number on a home’s influence, and she looks at the people alongside the rooms.

Whether a visit to your address is possible is something the team confirms when you enquire. A large home, or one on several floors, takes longer to read than a flat, so the longer options usually suit it better. Tell the team how many floors and rooms there are, and they will help you pick a suitable session and confirm the amount and the timing.

The one where you spend the most hours, or the one that gives the most trouble, usually a bedroom or a work corner. Change one thing at a time and live with it for a few weeks before you change the next. That is easier to keep up and easier to judge than a long list done at once. A room that already works needs nothing.