Q&A Sunday: Interior Doors - Should They Open Out or In?
I'm looking at an office space where the door opens out, rather than into the space. I have the option to change the door swing. But someone told me once that if the door opens it is "bad feng shui". It is confusing to me! Also, is it ok that the doors of office 1 and 2 (on my plan) are facing each other?
Teri G., New York, NY
Hi Teri,
This is a great question. It all depends on the person and their floor plan, but in general it is better feng shui to have the door swing into your office.
In feng shui, doors represent the "mouth of qi", where the life force energy comes into the space. If the door swings into your space, the flow of qi is smoother. For an office or business this is important, because you want clients and opportunities to be attracted and easily connect with you. When you open the door towards you as you walk into any room, there is a feeling of pulling back rather than a natural movement forward.
In your case, since you have the option, DEFINITELY change the door swings of the neighbor and #2. Besides attracting more clients and opportunities, you have a situation where your doors are hitting each other. When the doors hit in this situtaion, it may cause or exacerbate possible conflict between you and your neighbor. And we don't want that if we can help it. Based on your floor plan, if you can put the hinge opposite side even better (so when you open the door it covers the closet).
It's actually not as easy as it would seem to reverse the door swing of an existing door. It is always best if you can change the door swing, so I would recommend talking to a contractor. If this is not possible for whatever reason, unfortunately it's not really correctable. It's best just to accept the door as is with its faults and work with a feng shui consultant to compensate for this and improve the feng shui in other ways. Again though, if possible change the door swing!
Finally, the doors of office 1 and 2 are aligned but that's not a problem. Let us know how it goes!!!