Take it from Cathey Crawley — feng shui consultant, nurse manager and Baptist preacher's daughter:

"If people knew the importance of placement and balance in their home, I'm telling you, there'd be a lot fewer crabby people."

Feng shui — the ancient Chinese practice of design to achieve harmony in life — is so important to Cathey that she looked at, by her count, at least 300 homes before she and husband Roy decided to buy their Waukee walkout last year.

Well, make that 301.

"We were arranging to close on a house up the street on a Tuesday when they had an open house here, and we took one look and I said I had to have this house," Cathey said. "The arches, the rich woods, the mix of woods and the tiered ceiling — it's wonderful. It's calm, peaceful and balanced. It can take you away. You relax the minute you walk in."

"None of the other houses ever jumped out and said, 'Crawleys, this is you,' " said Roy.

"I see the same reaction on people's faces when they come in the front door," said Cathey. "It feels like fresh air even though you're coming from the outside inside."

"Very few of the other houses had a blank wall greater than 11 feet," Roy said.

And that's important, why?

"I had to have a wall for my entertainment center," he said. "Look at this. We went to Artis and found this. It said, 'This is for Roy.' "

So now you know the source of Roy's chi.

And that's why the day they toured this house, they made an offer and put their money down. It was accepted and ...

"We used Monday to say, 'Sorry, we're not buying your home after all.' "

They got into this house early enough to have a say in some of the finish work.

"We got to have our touch put on the house — the final touches," Roy said. "It's livable and child-friendly. We have a 6-year-old - Hunter — and he's all boy."

"We're a bit older," Cathey said.

And can use any advantage the house can provide in the way of energy - the chi - right?

"We do like to have fun, and this is a good area to do it in," she said, her arm sweeping across the open-plan kitchen, breakfast nook and living room. "And this is a good house to do it in."

"The house is livable," Roy said. "It's playful, and it's livable."

So, Roy, you follow along with this feng shui stuff, too?

Said Cathey: "He's been living with me for 27 years, and he's still a skeptic."

"I love golf," said Roy, a manufacturing manager.

That's why the lower level has the clubs on the wall, the photos of famous golfers, the little statuary on the little links.

"I think Tiger Woods is a master golfer, the best to walk the face of this world," he said. "And I have tiger-wood flooring in all my house."

One passion the two of them share is a love of movies. So the media room has a huge screen, theater seating, a projection TV and even curtains alongside the screen (which also cover up rows and rows of DVDs). Nice speakers, too.

" 'Triple X' is my favorite movie 'cause it goes boom!" Cathey said.

Now don't misunderstand her. This is the Vin Diesel/Samuel L. Jackson action film, not whatever it was you were thinking. Cathey is, remember, a preacher's kid. But she does like that "xXx" energy.

"The neighbors call and ask, 'Did something explode?' "

Homestyle is a monthly magazine publication of The Des Moines Register.