ephas
21 September 2020
If you plan to decorate or redesign your home’s interior, you need to be conscious of the environment before settling on a design. There is a growing concern about the overall health of planet Earth with much focus on global warming.
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Thus, environmental interior design is becoming the new normal, with homeowners incorporating best practices and ideas from authority sites such as homemakerguide.com that can contribute to the planet’s overall health. These sustainable practices can also impact your overall health and well-being.
Here are ten solid ideas for environmental interiors.
Don’t be in a rush
When you move into a new home, you may be tempted to redesign it before settling in. Sometimes, you may end up doing away with environmental impact interior design that would have improved your home. You may also spend your money on something that may not add value to your home.
Therefore, you need to take your time and explore the house before making decoration decisions. Analyse all the rooms both day and night to feel how they look at different times. Also, think through your decoration and design options before implementing them.
Think twice about the trends
Trends and fashion are good because you learn new things or ideas to improve your interior designs. Sometimes, these trends and styles come with a lot of pressure such that you may implement a design because your friends are doing it.
However, it would be best if you thought beyond the trend. Don’t fill your living space with flowers because a celebrity said it is the “in” thing. Remember, your environmental interior architecture and design should be an expression of your personality, not another person’s opinion.
Choose the right lighting
Lighting is essential for any home. Thus, you need to choose the right light for your home. Natural light is your best option since you do not pay for it and bring out the ambiance you desire.
Energy-efficient doors and windows will bring the outdoor feel into your house. You can use different bulb colours for different rooms, according to your preference.
Use plant decorations
There are tons of environmental interior design ideas that you can use to improve your home’s air quality. Plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen or fresh air into your room.
Moreover, it adds ambiance, natural beauty, and freshness and brings the outdoors into your house. So, don’t just think about aesthetic decors, which only improve the look and not the home’s freshness.
Limit the use of decorating products with VOC contents
Wall paints, air fresheners, adhesives, furniture, cleaning products, and carpets may contain high volatile organic compounds (VOC) content. These organic compounds can evaporate at high temperatures, with their concentration indoors almost five times higher than outdoors.
VOCs may lead to health complications such as headache, throat and eye irritation, and liver damage. Therefore, you need to limit the use of products with VOC content. You can do this by using water-based paints and paint thinners. Also, ensure that you buy a wood product that does not contain formaldehyde.
Invest in long-lasting furniture
Invest in long-lasting and high-quality products that can withstand life and environmental changes. Avoid furniture that can easily break and send you back to the shop more often. Forget tables and chairs made of plastics and make your home eco-friendly with natural wood products. Solid wood furniture like oak, teak, and walnut will last longer.
However, only buy furniture made from wood with a certification stamp to ensure you do not use an endangered or prohibited species for your furniture.
Choose natural finishing and textiles
Apart from furniture, you can craft several household items from natural material. Some of these items include pillows, beddings, upholstery, and mattresses. Making these items from natural material helps cut down on synthetic material.
This also means that the upholstery and textiles do not contain chemicals and VOC content. You should make rugs and carpets from natural fibre such as cotton and wool rather than the usual synthetic material.
Accentuate your interior with natural material
If you want to embrace your home’s environmental interior, you should fear thinking outside the box. There are many ways to accentuate your interior with natural material to preserve the environment and improve your interior looks.
For instance, you can use salvaged material such as wood to make some of your furniture, such as a coffee table and bookshelf. You can also use broken glass jars as your flower vase. Use shell or beautiful stones as your table’s centre piece.
Reuse, recycle and repurpose items
It is normal to want to change or replace worn-out material. However, you can repair, recycle, and reuse some of these items rather than spending a fortune replacing them. You can give your sofas a new lease of life by changing their cover and repairing broken legs.
Additionally, you can repair and reuse broken cabinets or use your old clothes to make floor rugs. Recycling helps reduce the amount of waste and save on the cost of the environmental interior.
Give away unwanted items
It is a fact that you can’t recycle or reuse everything in your house. Rather than bury the items in a landfill, you can give them away or swap them for other items. There are recycling centres that collect unwanted items that are not in the right conditions for their use.
Also, charity organisations collect items that are in good condition for distribution in places of need.
Conclusion
Whether you are redesigning your home or improving the current design, environmentally friendly interior design will come in handy in improving your home’s overall look. The eco-friendly designs also improve your home’s air quality and help in the conservation of the environment.
There are many ideas that you can incorporate into your home interiors. You only need to know what you want and how you want it done.
About the Author
Kevin is a content writer for about 3 years. He studied Design and Arts at College in Pennsylvania. A fan of home interior design and, he has taken it upon himself to spread his love for decorating homes by informing people on some of his ideas through his articles.
