Is your living room furniture around the edges of the room?

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I don't know anyone who has furniture other than around the perimeter in their living room.

There must be some out there!

@ChonkyLamp

PandemicattheDisco - oh dear God. That should really be illegal.

I can see how some feng shui principles can help with furniture placement, that's not right up to the walls, in larger rooms in open plan houses. Some of it seems common sense such as reducing clutter and furniture not against the walls requiring 'anchoring' with a central point such as a coffee table.

Bad feng shui creates negative energy or the 'Sha Chi' in my friend's house - or at least a sense of shock at how bad it all looks after the expensive renovations. She's endorsed some of the feng shui principles whilst completely ignoring others such as in the bedrooms where beds are optimally placed diagonally - in small bedrooms this really isn't possible. Beds in alignment of doorways is a big no no.

In theory you would create a bright hall area to the front of the house to activate the chi (so don't convert large kitchen/diner to a central hallway and add a tiny kitchen extension to the end!). The chi needs to be free-flowing - but the tiny kitchen extension has created a funnel where the front of the house is wider than the rear, the funnelling of the chi is not good. It is like a boa constrictor tightening it's grip on the chi.

Feng shui principles endorse the minimalist, clutter free lifestyle - so where does the clutter go - hidden in the nook and storage cupboards that additionally streamline that energy flow. I can understand the reasoning behind her design choices. It just looks so bad.

I have one sofa against the wall and another one at right angles to it 2/3 of the way along the room facing the fireplace and TV.

Works much better in a longer rectangle shaped room, my living room isn't massive but the proportions just work better this way. The space behind the sofa has a low storage unit and then bookshelves on the back wall.

She's endorsed some of the feng shui principles whilst completely ignoring others

Ah, that makes more sense. I'm not a follower of feng shui, but the few feng shui principles I know about do make a lot of sense in terms of making a place "nice," if you see what I mean. So I was confused as to how your friend could have made her house so horrible if she'd really been following feng shui!

I do think that furniture and decoration 'rules' (feng shui or otherwise) will only take you so far, though, especially if you don't have a full grasp of the system they belong to. So no use thinking that your sofas MUST be a certain distance from the wall if that really doesn't work for the room you're in. If it feels wrong, it is wrong, iyswim.

I think there are a few obvious cues for furniture placement. If your head needs to rotate 180 degrees so you can watch the wall mounted TV above the fireplace - then the feng shui has gone horribly wrong!

Or maybe it's a clever ploy to ensure that most of her children stay upstairs in their own bedrooms....

One sofa is a couple of feet away from the one wall and the other one is in the middle of the room sort of dividing the room up.

One sofa "floats" partway down the room as it's a long oblong and would be too far back against that wall. There's about 5 feet behind which is good for the exercise equipment and Lego to hide behind. The other is a couple of feet from the wall to allow the sofa to recline and for the radiator. Not the greatest floor space in the middle.