The Short Answer: Use the Main Body or Each Room
For an irregular home, most guides either lay the grid over the main body of the home or apply it room by room. Areas that fall outside the plan are called “missing”, and they are treated with symbolic remedies. Pick one method and use it consistently.
What Counts as an Irregular Plan
An irregular plan is any layout that is not a simple rectangle. Common examples are L-shaped and U-shaped homes, rooms with bump-outs, open-plan spaces, and homes where one corner is cut away. In these cases, the nine boxes of the grid may not fit neatly onto the plan.
Step 1: Sketch the Plan to Scale
Draw the outline of the home or room to scale. Mark the main entrance, and mark each room and hallway. A rough sketch is fine for a first look, but accurate measurements make the next steps clearer.
Step 2: Choose a Method
- Main body: draw the grid over the main rectangle of the home, with the bottom edge on the entrance wall. Areas that fall outside the plan are the missing areas.
- Room by room: apply the grid to each room, using its door as the bottom edge.
- Bounding rectangle: draw the grid over the smallest rectangle that holds the whole plan, then mark the corners that are cut away. Schools differ on this, so check your guide.
The pillar guide explains the grid itself, and the front-door and compass methods.
Step 3: Identify the Missing Areas
Take an L-shaped living room as an example. If the back-right corner is cut away, the relationship area on the Western grid falls outside the room. Mark that area as missing. The same reasoning applies to any box that the plan does not cover.
Check each missing area against your life goals. If one area matters to you, focus on it first.
Step 4: Use Remedies for the Missing Area
Traditional remedies are simple and mostly symbolic:
- A mirror on the wall next to the missing area, placed to reflect the room or a pleasant view.
- Good lighting in the missing area, such as a wall light or a lamp.
- A plant or artwork placed where the missing area would be.
These are cures in the traditional sense. Any structural change, such as building an extension or adding a bump-out, is a decision for an architect or builder. Check with a professional before changing a wall.
Rooms With No Clear Center
If the plan has no clear middle, use the entrance or the main living area as the reference point. Many guides suggest this for open-plan homes, where the room’s function matters more than its exact shape.
What to Leave Out
Some guides suggest cures with no traditional source or evidence, such as burying crystals in the yard or painting a dot on the pavement. This article does not recommend them. Stick to practical remedies such as mirrors, lights, plants, and art.
Check Back Over Time
After you move furniture or change the layout, check the plan again. Small, steady changes are easier to keep up than a major overhaul, and they let you see what actually works in your space.
For the garden side of a lot with an irregular shape, see the garden guide. For the northwest area, which is often one of the missing areas in a cut-away plan, see the northwest area guide.