A red front door meaning in feng shui is good luck and auspicious energy. The front door to your feng shui home is considered the mouth of chi, meaning the front door is where you invite auspicious chi energy to enter your home.
Red Front Door Meaning and Advantages
The value of a red front door in feng shui is based on what the color red symbolizes. In feng shui, the color red symbolizes the fire element. The fire element rules the compass direction, south. This means that not every feng shui home should have a red front door, since not every home faces the south direction.
Red Front Door Feng Shui and Facing Directions
You can quickly understand why a fire element color isn't appropriate for other facing directions when you consider each direction has its own ruling element. For example, a southeast facing home would be better served with a green or tan colored door since these colors symbolize the governing element of wood. A red front door in this sector would symbolize the weakening cycle where fire burns the wood element. This would, in effect, rob you of the wealth luck that the southeast sector bestows when activated by the wood element.
What Does a Red Front Door Mean?
A red front door meaning is one of yang energy. It is a highly energized color and attracts high energy to enter your home. The south is your recognition and fame sector. When you paint your south-facing front door red, you are symbolically inviting recognition and fame luck to enter your home and your life.
Energy of the Fire Element
The energy of the fire element is unpredictable. It can behave erratically and can have a flash burn. To provide this element with a constant fuel, it's best that your red door be wood since the wood element feeds the fire element in the productive cycle. You can also plant woody shrubbery around/near the front door and place non-pointed leaf plants at the front door entrance.
Wood Colors for South Facing House
If you just don't want a red door in your south facing house, you can use one of the wood colors, green or tan. Symbolically, both colors represent the wood element continuously feeding the fire element.
What Is the Best Red for Your Front Door?
There are many values of the color red. These range from bright red to dark burgundy. The prominent feng shui color for a red front door is Chinese red, often called bright cherry red. However, you aren't limited to this one hue. You can just as easily opt for a burgundy red or other red.
Red Front Door for Southwest and Northeast Facing Directions
You can use a red front door for the southwest (love and relationship luck) and northeast (education luck) facing directions. Both directions are ruled by the earth element (ochre color). In the feng shui productive cycle, fire produces earth (ash). This means a red door in either direction could symbolize the fire element, creating more earth energy.
Alternatives to a Red Front Door in Feng Shui
For the other facing directions, you can go with an alternative to a red front door. In feng shui, you can choose one of the assigned colors for the facing direction of your home. For example, the best color for a north facing home is one of the two colors that represent this sector's ruling element of water. The assigned colors for the water element are blue and black.
Red Front Doors Without Paint
On the Chinese New Year's Eve, the cracks around the front door are sealed by stuffing them with red paper. It's believed the last bits of bad luck of the current year will attempt to seep into the house if the cracks aren't sealed. This negative chi (sha chi) tries to hide inside the house and take up residence so the auspicious chi energies of the New Year can't replace it.
Covering the Front Door With Red Paper
Another feng shui tradition is to cover the front door with red paper. This paper often features various writings, such as mantras and sayings that offer protection for the family inside. The mantras may also contain good luck wishes and/or symbols.
Non-Related Feng Shui Red Front Door Meanings
There are a few other red front door meanings that aren't feng shui related. Most of the instances of red front door traditions are found in storytelling.
What Does a Red Front Door Mean in Scotland?
There are several stories about red front doors in Scotland. This seems to be more of a historical myth than fact. The story goes that paying off a mortgage was announced to the village by the homeowner painting their front door red. There isn't a modern tradition of anyone doing this, so perhaps it is a long lost tradition that remains in storytelling only.
What Does a Red Front Door Mean in Ireland?
According to The Circular, news site of Griffith College Dublin, the famous Doors of Dublin, a bright colorful mix of front doors, has several stories of origin. Red is just one of the many colors found in the Doors of Dublin.
- When ordered to paint their door black in honor of the death of Queen Victoria of England, aka Famine Queen, the front doors of Irish homes were painted in a wide variety of bright lively colors. This tradition continues today.
- The different colored doors ensured that drunken husbands would find the right door when coming home from the pub.
- Following the strict plans of the Georgian architecture uniformity, Irish homeowners began painting their doors in bright distinctive colors so they could distinguish their homes from their neighbors.
Early Americans Welcome With a Red Front Door Tradition
It's believed that the early Americans used a red front door to welcome travelers. The family within the home would give safe harbor for a night's stay to anyone traveling. During this era, travel was difficult, and there were few places where travelers could spend the night. A red front door is said to have been a favored greeting to travelers to stop in for a respite.
Religious Red Front Door Meaning
During the Egyptian enslavement, Moses instructed the Hebrew slaves to paint their front doors with the blood of lambs, so the Angel of Death would pass over their homes, sparing their first-born children. In the past, Catholic churches had red painted doors symbolic of the blood of Christ.
Red Front Door Meaning in Feng Shui
Before you paint your front door red, consider the facing direction of your home. If you wish to add a symbolic meaning of recognition and fame luck, then a red front door is a great feng shui addition to your home.
