Two ways to lay out a bagua
The word bagua (八卦) means "eight trigrams". In feng shui it's a map of nine areas — eight around the edge and one in the centre — that you place over a home to see which part of the space relates to which part of life. There are two common ways to place it, and they often put the same area in different corners.
The front-door method
Used by the Black Hat (BTB) school and most Western feng shui books. You ignore the compass completely. Stand at the front door looking in: the wall with the door is the bottom row of the grid, which holds Knowledge (left), Career (middle) and Helpful People (right). The far-left corner is always Wealth, the far-middle Fame, the far-right Love.
The compass method
Used in classical Chinese feng shui. Each area belongs to a compass direction: North is Career, Southeast is Wealth, Southwest is Love, and so on, following the Later Heaven arrangement of the trigrams. To use it you need to know which way the house faces. You can split the plan into a 9-square grid aligned with the walls — simple, and close enough for homes that face near a cardinal direction — or into 8 sectors of 45° radiating from the centre, which is more accurate when the house sits at an angle.
The nine areas
| Area | Compass direction | Trigram | Element | Front-door position |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Career | North | Kan ☵ (water) | Water | Front, middle |
| Knowledge | Northeast | Gen ☶ (mountain) | Earth | Front, left |
| Family | East | Zhen ☳ (thunder) | Wood | Middle, left |
| Wealth | Southeast | Xun ☴ (wind) | Wood | Back, left |
| Fame | South | Li ☲ (fire) | Fire | Back, middle |
| Love | Southwest | Kun ☷ (earth) | Earth | Back, right |
| Children | West | Dui ☱ (lake) | Metal | Middle, right |
| Helpful People | Northwest | Qian ☰ (heaven) | Metal | Front, right |
| Health | Centre | — | Earth | Centre |
Fitting the grid to a real plan
- Use the outer walls. Stretch the grid to the main body of the home. Attached garages and open porches are usually left out; a garage you live in or pass through daily is often included.
- Irregular shapes. Draw the grid over the smallest rectangle that encloses the home. A grid square that is mostly outside the walls is called a missing area; a small projection outside the rectangle is an extension. The missing corner checker measures this for you.
- Multiple floors. Each floor gets its own grid, aligned to the same orientation as the ground floor.
- Single rooms. The same grid can be placed over one room, using the room's door (front-door method) or the room's directions (compass method).
Questions
Which method is correct?
They come from different traditions and answer the question differently, so neither is a correction of the other. Classical practitioners use the compass; many Western consultants use the front door. Pick one and stay with it — mixing them is where most confusion comes from.
My front door is on a side wall. What now?
For the front-door method, rotate the grid until the red bar sits on the wall the door is in. For an angled entrance, use the wall the door is mostly in.
Is my floor plan uploaded anywhere?
No. The image is read and drawn by your browser. When you save, the picture is made on your device too. Closing the page clears it.
Can I use a PDF?
Not directly. Open the PDF, take a screenshot of the plan, and paste it here (Ctrl+V or ⌘V works).