It should be understood that the areas of a house that a person spends the most time in are the areas to focus on. Usually, no other room competes with the bedroom(s) or the heavily used home office. And yet, we can take apart a whole floor plan and interpret the effects of other areas of the house as well. A poorly placed bathroom or kitchen could affect the whole family.
Some of the energies in a house are invisible, but powerful, and were created when the house was built. Energies from the earth move upwards as the foundation is being established. Energies from the sun and stars penetrate downward and are captured in the house when the roof finally encloses the house. The timing of the roof going on is called the year of Construction.
With a multi-storied house or building there will be repeating energies. For instance, if you have a bedroom directly over a dining room, those two rooms will have some similar influences. And so, it is also true with basements and attics that they will usually contain a similar energy as the rooms they are above or below.
This becomes very relevant when attics and basements are remodeled into rooms that are used on a regular basis. Like any other room in a house, they may require certain element remedies. As well, yin-yang theory comes into play because attics and basements are typically areas that might need more light than what they were originally provided.
Attics that are turned into rooms often have sloped ceilings and some times the ceilings are lower than normal. Low ceilings are good for concentrating, but not at the expense of being so low that it feels congestive or one becomes claustrophobic in the space. Basement ceilings are sometimes left unfinished, where beams and air ducts or exposed plumbing lines are not ideal to have over head for a heavily used area.
Another aspect of yin-yang theory that becomes more evident with attics and basements is temperature. Heat rises, so an attic may become uncomfortably hot and a basement may be perpetually cold. Just like their depiction in movies, people often feel spooked about their own attic or basement, as if every one of these spaces gets occupied by a ghost. It’s kind of interesting that we anticipate on instinct that a dark, cluttered, neglected space might be inhabited by spirits.
If an attic or basement is just used for storage, then having a lot of lighting is not critical. People ask me all the time if they have clutter or storage areas in certain parts of the house, if that can have a negative impact on some area of their lives. This is usually not the most important thing to be concerned with. In fact, we can say that if you are able to put all your extra miscellaneous things in the attic or basement, better there than filling up rooms that you use regularly, where you need more open space.
There are no other mystical secrets to reveal about attics and basements. They just need to be balanced according to yin-yang theory in order to be comfortable as living spaces. Not too dark, not too bright. Not too hot, not too cold. They should have high enough ceilings to function in and stable enough flooring to feel safe walking around. After that, they can be evaluated like any other floor in a house with all the other Feng Shui principles applying.
