Adopting a green living strategy means being holistic, cutting your carbon footprint across the board, wherever possible. Eco-friendly décor for your home is part of that initiative, and can look fabulous. Some of the principles of eco-friendly décor have been around for ages. For example, minimalist designers recommended natural materials, with their aesthetically pleasing textures and forms, as the perfect complement for uncluttered living spaces. That still works, but eco-friendly decorating ideas have also come a long way since then.
Conspicuous consumption, and lots of it, is one of the reasons we’ve got the planet into the environmental mess it’s in. We’ve been nudged into endless buying and updating the look of our homes, with obvious environmental consequences as we use more non-renewable resources and consign the old to landfills. Instead of buying furniture and fittings that will date and fall apart, consider buying a few high quality signature pieces that you’ll love forever and that can even be passed down the generations.
Natural materials feel good, look good and won’t give off noxious gases. Why have plastic picture frames or synthetic carpets, for example, when you can have wood and hard-wearing real wool? One constraint is shrinking household budgets, but buying natural materials that will last can save money in the long term. Getting creative with natural materials that aren’t polluting and are easily recyclable is the way to go. Think of bowls of richly colored fruit or flowers from the garden. They’re always beautiful and are infinitely environmentally friendly.
Decorating is about putting your personal stamp on your home interiors. Repurposing furniture and creating your own decorative pieces is the best way to do that. If you make it yourself, you have something that is uniquely you, as well as being eco-friendly decoration. Great art is partly about a great look, but it’s also about creativity and clever ideas. Recycling household goods and using creative flair to repurpose things is the same thing. From jam jars and old cans to driftwood and pebbles, the world is full of materials to turn into stylish eco-friendly decorations.
Refashioning old wood is big in the eco-friendly decoration arena. Old beams and lumber, doors, boxes and more are ripe for reworking into quality new items for the home. It helps save the trees that ultimately purify our air. Indoor plants, from bonsai trees to large plants in containers are always good in eco-friendly decoration and help to give any room a clean, natural and calm ambience.
A few cans of paint can be the key to an eco-friendly makeover. A clever color scheme can be transformative, while a simple paint job can rejuvenate tired furniture that has become a tad boring. Buy eco-friendly paints without too many petrochemical ingredients – they’ve come a long way. Check out eco-friendly stores for goods or for eco-friendly decorating ideas to inspire you. It’s fun, green and a way to be more stylish.
A home that looks great and is easy and healthy to live in isn’t had to achieve and the benefits are well worth the effort.