Lunar New Year 2027: preparing your home for the Year of the Goat

Dates

Customs for the home, briefly

Practices differ between families, regions and communities. These are some of the widely known Chinese customs that feng shui writing draws on.

• Spring couplets (chunlian). Red paper strips with matching lines of verse on either side of the front door, and a horizontal line above it.
• The fu character (福). “Good fortune”, on the door or walls. Some families hang it upside down, because “upside down” (dao) sounds like “arrived” in Mandarin.
• Red lanterns at the entrance or in the window.
• Mandarin oranges and tangerines, given in pairs and set out in bowls. In Cantonese the word for them sounds like “gold”.
• Flowers and plants: plum blossom, peach blossom, narcissus, pussy willow and potted kumquat trees.
• The reunion dinner on New Year’s Eve, with lights left on and many people staying up late (shou sui).
• Before and after the day. Many households clean the house in the days before New Year, and avoid sweeping on New Year’s Day itself. Those customs are about timing; the rest of this guide is about layout.

The entrance

In feng shui the front door is where a home meets the world, so it gets the most attention at New Year.

1. Let the door open fully. If a coat stand, shoe cabinet or chair stops it short, move it to the wall beside the hinge side.
2. Light the approach. A lit path and porch, and a lamp inside the door, especially for the evening of the 5th.
3. No mirror facing the door straight on. Tradition says it sends the energy coming in straight back out; a mirror on a side wall is fine. More on mirrors and front doors.
4. Hang the decorations at the door itself: couplets either side, the fu character, a pair of lanterns.
5. Check the door’s sector for 2027. If it is in the North (5 Yellow), tradition favours gold, brass and white alongside the red, and no work on the door or porch this year. If it is in the North-West or South, both supportive in 2027, keep it bright and in daily use.

Colours and decorations

Red and gold are the colours of the festival in every year. The 2027 chart only changes where extra colour goes:

• Red fits best at the centre (9 Purple, a fire star), the South-East (8 White) and the North-East (3 Jade, where tradition uses red as a softener).
• Go easy on red in the North and West. Their stars are earth, and fire feeds earth. Gold, brass and white work there instead.
• Blue and silver suit the East (7 Red, a metal star calmed by water).

Details for every sector are in lucky colours for 2027.

Where to put flowers, fruit and plants

New Year flowers and plants are wood, and fruit bowls sit wherever people gather. In 2027 the centre (wood feeds the 9 Purple fire star), the South (4 Green, a wood star) and the North-West (1 White, water feeds wood) are the traditional places for them. Tradition keeps large arrangements out of the North-East, whose wood star is linked with arguments. In the bedroom, keep it to one or two small plants; see plants in the bedroom.

Seating for the reunion dinner and visitors

• The host or eldest sits in the command position: a solid wall behind, with a view of the door, not directly in line with it.
• Keep the table out of the door’s path, so people coming and going don’t walk straight into the meal.
• Avoid seating people with their back to the West or facing the South-West for the whole evening, if the room lets you choose.
• In the living room, arrange the sofa so guests entering are in view, rather than behind people (sofa back to the door).

After the holiday

The decorations come down after the Lantern Festival on 20 February in many homes. The layout changes stay: the door that opens fully, the lit entrance, the seating with a view of the door. If you’re planning bigger changes for the year, check them against the 2027 flying-star chart first, and see the Year of the Goat guide for your sign.

Questions people ask