Vastu for a small home: five things that cost nothing

Vastu is read from the floor-plan, direction by direction. In a small rented home you cannot move walls, and you should not be told to. What you can move is what sits where. These five cost nothing.

One. Sleep with the head to the south or east, never north. Most bedrooms allow at least one of these. Two. Keep the north-east corner of the home light, clean and as empty as you can manage. It is the corner for water and prayer; it should not hold the shoe rack or the broom.

Three. Cook facing east if the kitchen allows it. If the stove is fixed, at least keep the water container away from the stove, ideally to the north-east of it. Four. Heavy furniture goes to the south and west. Cupboards, the bed, the fridge. Leave the north and east lighter.

Five. The main door should open inward, fully, without a cupboard or shoes blocking it. A door that opens only halfway is the most common small-home fault seen in floor-plans, and the easiest to fix. If a plan has a real structural problem, a sitting will say so, and will also say whether it is worth worrying about at all.