Vastu for flats: what you can check, and what you can change

Most people asking about Vastu for flats live in a building they did not design, on a floor they did not choose, with a layout that cannot be moved. That is true in Mumbai and Bengaluru, and just as true in London, Toronto, New Jersey or Sydney.

The classical texts describe a house standing on its own plot. Applying them to a flat takes some translation. This article explains how that translation is usually done, where practitioners disagree, and what you can change without a builder.

Which door counts as the entrance

This question comes first, and it causes the most confusion.

A flat has at least two doors that could be called the entrance: the gate or lobby door of the building, and the front door of your own flat. The common view is that the flat door is the one that matters. The reasoning is that Vastu reads the space you actually live in and control. The building entrance belongs to everybody, and the flat door is where your home begins.

Not everybody agrees. Some practitioners give weight to the building's entrance as well, and read it as the main entrance for the whole structure, with each flat's door as a secondary one. Others look at the direction the building faces before they look at the flat. If two people have given you different readings, this is often why. Neither is being careless. They are starting from different reference points.

To find which way your door faces, stand inside the flat looking out through the front door. The direction you face is the door's direction. Use a compass rather than a guess, since buildings are rarely square to north, and keep the phone away from steel railings and lift shafts, which can throw the reading off.

The traditionally favoured directions for a main door are north, east and north-east. Our article on which direction your main door should face explains why, and the main door guide gives the reading for all eight directions, with remedies for the ones that are not ideal.

Reading the zones inside a flat

Once you know where north is, Vastu treats the flat itself as the plot. Lay an imaginary three-by-three grid over the floor plan. You get a centre and eight zones, one for each direction.

A few points are specific to flats:

• Use the flat's outline, not the building's. Your north-east corner is the north-east corner of your own floor plan, even if it sits in the middle of the building.
• Irregular shapes are normal. Flats often have a cut or an extension where a lift, staircase or neighbour's wall intrudes. Tradition is most concerned about a missing north-east corner, but a cut is a feature of the plan, not a verdict on the home.
• Balconies count as part of the zone they sit in. A balcony on the north or east side is generally read as favourable, because it opens the side meant to stay light.
• The centre (Brahmasthan) is meant to stay open. In a flat that usually means not filling the middle of the main room with heavy furniture or storage.

Kitchen, bedroom and toilet

These three rooms account for most Vastu questions about flats, partly because they are the hardest to move.

Kitchen. South-east is the traditional zone for the kitchen, as it is the zone of Agni, fire. North-west is the usual second choice. Within the kitchen, the tradition places the cook facing east while working at the stove. You cannot move a kitchen in a rented flat, but you can often choose where you stand, and facing east while cooking is the most quoted kitchen rule of all. The kitchen guide goes through each direction.

Bedroom. The south-west is traditionally the zone for the main bedroom, the zone read as stable and heavy. In a flat with two or three bedrooms, the tradition gives the south-west room to the head of the household and the others to children or guests. Sleeping with the head towards the south or east is the classical recommendation, and towards the north is the direction usually avoided. The bed can almost always be turned, even where the room cannot be changed. See the bedroom guide.

Toilet. This is where flats break the classical rules most often. Modern plans put bathrooms wherever the plumbing stacks run, and those stacks are the same on every floor. The tradition prefers the north-west for toilets, then the west, with the south workable, and is most cautious about the north-east. If your toilet sits in the north-east, it is a common feature of apartment buildings, not a reason for alarm. The toilet guide lists the usual remedies.

Vastu for flats: what to check before buying or renting

If you are choosing between flats, a few minutes with a compass and the floor plan tells you most of what Vastu would ask about. The order below is roughly the order of importance the tradition gives:

1. The direction of the flat door, read from inside looking out.
2. Whether the north-east corner is present, open and light, not cut away or taken by a toilet.
3. Where the kitchen sits, and whether you could face east at the stove.
4. Where the main bedroom sits, and whether the bed could go with its head to the south or east.
5. Where the toilets fall, especially relative to the north-east.
6. Natural light from the north and east, which tends to count in a flat's favour on practical grounds as well.

Weigh these alongside the things that matter on any viewing: the building's condition, the area, the commute and the price. Few flats meet every rule. The tradition itself treats a home as a balance of its features, not a pass or fail on one of them.

Fixes that need no demolition

The classical remedies for a flat are almost all about placement, use and upkeep. None of them needs a wall moved.

• Keep the north-east light. Clear clutter, avoid heavy storage there, and if possible use it for a small prayer space or a quiet seat.
• Put weight in the south-west. Heavy wardrobes, bookshelves and the main bed belong there by tradition.
• Turn what you can turn. The bed, the desk and where you stand to cook are the cheapest changes, and they cover some of the most quoted rules.
• Keep the entrance clean, well lit and unobstructed. Shoes, bins and broken fittings by the front door are the most common things practitioners point out, and the easiest to fix.
• Keep toilet doors closed and the room clean and ventilated, especially if it sits in the north-east.
• Use the zones for what they are suited to where you have the choice: a spare room in the north-west for guests, a study facing east or north.

Remedies sold as objects, such as pyramids, strips and plates, are a separate tradition with its own followers. They are not needed to make the placements above.

Check your own flat

Our Vastu guides take each room in turn and set out what the tradition says for every direction it can face, with the remedies for the directions that are not ideal. Begin with the main door, since everything else is read from there, then go through the kitchen, bedroom and toilet using your own compass reading.

A flat is a constraint, not a defect. Vastu was always about arranging the space you have as well as you can, and that applies to a two-bedroom flat on the eleventh floor as much as to a house on its own plot.