Eco-friendly home decor ideas for your house

Home decor plays an important role in setting up a space to call your own, as it’s a space you spend most of your personal moments in. The interiors of a room can also reflect your personality, which can be an important factor in creating comfort for yourself to unwind after a long day. 

While vintage decor and minimalism are huge trends in the world of interior design, one trend that remains eternal is eco-friendly home decor. Practising sustainability at home can go a long way in reducing your carbon footprint, and integrating sustainable home decor can also cut costs by a lot. Here are some ideas on how to spruce up your house while remaining environmentally conscious.

Opt for sustainably sourced materials

When picking out your furniture, ensure that the raw materials used to create that coffee table or those ornate set of chairs have been ethically sourced. Choose furniture with certifications that mark that the wood used hasn’t contributed to deforestation in any way and that the companies in question focus on ethical labour standards and fair trade. Look out for certifications like the FSC, PEFC, Greenguard, BIFMA, CARB, and ANSI Safety and Performance Standards. Purchasing textiles made from natural fabrics can also help add to your list of eco-friendly items for decoration, like cushion covers, sheets, tablecloths and the like, made of bamboo, jute, linen, and hemp fabrics. 

Use non-toxic materials

With a fresh lick of paint, redoing your walls or repurposing a piece of furniture can be an affordable way to give your space a whole new look. Choose paints that are non-toxic and free from Volatile Organic Compounds which are harmful to the environment as well as to humans. These can continually release toxic emissions for years, making the air harmful to breathe. Carpets, too, can emit high levels of these harmful compounds which can cause allergens to accumulate. Choosing handwoven rugs can bring colour and playful designs into a space without bringing the harmful toxins of chemical dyes into the house.

Add decorative houseplants

Add life to a room literally with houseplants, which make for great eco-friendly items for decoration. Not only do they beautify and freshen up any space, but they also increase the level of oxygen, purifying your home and the air that can sometimes go recycled in a closed-off room. Plants also soak up pollutants and harmful toxins, combatting chemicals from man-made materials. Improve the air quality indoors by adding one or two plants in each room, and simultaneously add a splash of green to different corners that were previously empty. You could even line a kitchen window sill with a few potted herbs to grow a small kitchen garden and decorate the space a little.

Create DIY decorations 

When the holidays come around, take out some time to create DIY eco-friendly home decor instead of purchasing plastic decorations from stores. Whether it’s Halloween or eco-friendly Christmas decorations you’re looking for, there are hundreds of Pinterest-worthy ideas out there for you to recreate. 

Upcycle and repurpose

You may assume that the items around your home serve only one purpose. But the truth is that you only have to think out of the box to envision a pile of old clothes into a DIY project to create an ottoman. Similarly, there are a number of ways to upcycle or repurpose any item. Before throwing something out, stop and brainstorm how you can turn it into some great sustainable home decor.

Buy refurbished furniture

When people throw out old furniture, it most often ends up in landfills, which are already overflowing, causing a negative impact on the environment. Opting to buy refurbished furniture is affordable, helps reduce your personal carbon footprint, and helps save the planet. Your purchase will also help you save money in the long run since you won’t have to replace it for several years. And of course, pre-loved furniture often has the best vintage and rustic appearance.

Shake things up

Sometimes the simplest ideas can work wonders. Feel free to play around with the furniture arrangement of a room, moving items from their original place to try something you originally wouldn’t have. Remove old photos and artwork from frames and walls and replace them with others you may have around the house. You can even try rearranging or replacing the books on your shelves to make the different colours of the books’ spines pop more. There are a lot of ways to go about redecorating your space this way.
Making the effort to live a more sustainable life contributes to the planet greatly, and every step, small or big, makes a difference. Check out Assetz Property Group’s luxury homes that enable eco-friendly lifestyles to make them a way of life.