More and more people are becoming aware of our impact on the environment. And more of us are making the effort to live a greener life. You can incorporate being eco-friendly into almost every area of your life, even in your interior design. If you’re redecorating or redesigning your home, we have created this post to help you make your interior design more eco-friendly. We also gathered recommended eco-friendly curtain poles from wood grown in FSC environmentally friendly forests.
1. Make your home energy efficient
Energy consumption is one of the biggest contributors to changing your environmental impact. Buildings are responsible for a large share of greenhouse gas emissions, caused by energy consumption. Architects and interior designers can do quite a lot to improve your home’s energy efficiency by decreasing the amount of energy needed for heating, lighting, running appliances, and so on. You can also use renewable, non-carbon-based energy in your home.
Heating and lighting are the two big factors you can change when redecorating. As most of your home’s heat escapes through windows, your windows must be of good quality and need to provide good insulation. Choose curtains and drapes that will keep both cold air and the sun’s heat outside, depending on the season. By opening and closing your window coverings, you can control your home’s temperature in a more energy-efficient way. Carpets are also very good insulators and can hold onto a lot of a room’s heat.
Choose the right colours to save some energy. For example, lighter colours reflect more light, while rooms that have darker walls and furnishings need more artificial lighting. Use reflective surfaces to increase the amount of light in a room, so you can use less electric lighting.
Green gadgets and home automation can make it simple to control heating and lighting around the home remotely. Automated lighting systems such as dimmers are ideal for areas like dining and living rooms where you want to control the lighting output and which can help you to use energy in your home more economically and efficiently.
Related: How To Maximize The Sunlight In Your Room
2. Reduce waste
When you’re redecorating or redesigning your home, avoid the materials and products being thrown away. Discarding things once they’re out of style and replacing them with current trends isn’t very sustainable, is it?
Fortunately, to keep our sustainability at home we have options, such as recycling, upcycling, and repurposing. Creative ways of using old-fashioned yet still functional items instead of discarding them can help. Choose synthetic materials that have been made from recycled waste or that can be recycled when you’re done with them can reduce the depletion of resources. By doing this waste becomes a raw material for something new, minimizing or even eliminating the waste.
Related: 6 Tips For Scandinavian Interior Design
3. Create eco-friendly interior that is timeless
Creating a home design that can serve you for decades is not only waste efficient, it also helps to create flexible living space. People grow and change, and our surroundings need to grow with us and reflect these changes. Good interior design should consider the flexibility of your home, and how it can be adapted to your changing needs over time. The key to a timeless home is to design flexible spaces. To do this, choose quality over quantity, classics over fast interior design trends, and simplicity and functionality over embellishments.
Related: 6 Best Window Coverings To Keep Cold Out
4. Choose durable and natural materials
So, what materials can help you to keep sustainable? Invest in design elements for your home that are natural, durable, and easy to keep clean or recycle. This includes wood, sheep’s wool, cork, natural stone, recycled steel. For more eco-friendly interiors choose renewable materials, like bamboo, which have been extracted responsibly too. This also means that you can save money and that a lot less renovation will be needed along the way, with a home that is easy to maintain as an added benefit.
When choosing wood materials, prefer wood grown in FSC environmentally friendly forests. Forest Stewardship Council is the organization that certifies forests worldwide to ensure they meet the highest environmental standards. This means that when you buy FSC wood you can be sure that your purchase will not harm the global forests. Shop responsibly for quality wooden window pole sets, sourced from FSC forests.
Real sustainability happens at all stages of the life cycle of the materials that you use in your home, from extraction, production, transportation, and processing, all the way to how they are discarded after you have finished using them.
Recommended eco-friendly curtain poles from wood grown in FSC environmentally friendly forests:
Rolls Woodline 28mm Wooden Curtain Poles; 120cm - £26.40; 360cm - £65.90
Rolls Modern Country Sugar Pot 45mm Wood Curtain Pole; 150cm - £137; 6m - £371.95
Rolls Modern Country Floral Ball 45mm Wooden Curtain Pole; 150cm - £137.40; 6m - £373.20
5. Improve the quality of air in your home
There are several things to consider when it comes to creating a healthy eco-friendly interior. For example, the quality of the air, heating, ventilation, lighting, and acoustics.
Products and materials that have high levels of toxic emissions are the big cause of indoor air pollution. For example, furniture or equipment that has been treated with harmful chemicals will release dangerous toxins into the air. Materials that have low emissions of VOC (volatile organic compounds) and other air pollutants are much better for improved indoor air quality.
Plants are a great idea for getting proper circulation of air around the home to keep it fresh. Plants will also act as natural air filters, and so do carpets. Surprisingly, carpets can improve the air quality by trapping dust particles, germs, and allergens from the air and holding them until you vacuum. Carpets are also excellent sound insulators, which help in reducing noise in the home by absorbing sound vibrations.
The pandemic has made work from home mandatory for many of us. As a result, we tend to spend more time than ever indoors. Trends in interior design are also leaning towards giving the "feel of outside inside". Exposure to natural light is beneficial for both physical and psychological health. In fact, this is even more needed now that we’re working from home too. Natural light can help to reduce stress and increase productivity. In fact, being surrounded by things from nature can have a calming effect in general. Include some elements in your home design and interiors to restore the connection between you and your home and the outside world.
Related: Redecorating living room ideas on a budget. How to transform any interiors
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