When spring arrives, we often think of refreshing our home with bright splashes of colour, changing our window coverings, replacing worn flooring or simply adding new accessories for an inexpensive lift. It’s all too easy to get swept up in redecorating without thinking about the effect on the planet. To go green, think recycled, reused or repurposed pieces. Part of the secret is to dust off your creativity and have some fun.
1. Recover: One of the easiest green improvements is to simply recover or re-upholster your furniture instead of replacing it. It will give new life to the piece and the room.
2. Rescue, reuse and rethink: Other people’s castoffs could prove useful, prescribing to the adage, ‘One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.’ Shop vintage or second-hand at garage sales, charity shops, antique markets, flea markets and eBay. They’re all great hunting grounds for interesting, unique items. Buying used can be considerably cheaper than buying new, and adds more character to your home. Also, by using community listings such as Craigslist, Kijiji and Freecycle, you can meet other like-minded people in your city.
3. Colour: A new paint colour refreshes and revives a room. Changing the way a room looks with paint is much cheaper than buying new furniture or wallpaper. Think colour therapy, not retail therapy! Look for paints that are water, not oil, based to avoid the excess gases that latex paints can put into the air. Many paint companies are now on board with eco-friendly paints, offering an enormous, and increasingly affordable, choice of colours and finishes.
4. Accents: Cushions add zip to a tired room. Old linen sheets, tea towels, tablecloths and curtains can be repurposed in no time into colourful, unique pillows. You can also make cushions from old clothes, adding vintage buttons or ribbons for a truly custom look. Innovative art ideas for your walls are endless: try framing an enlarged photo or covering a canvas with wallpaper, book pages, scrapbooking paper or a collage.
5. Flooring: Natural materials such as stone and recycled or renewable materials such as reclaimed lumber and bamboo are more durable than plastic and vinyl tiles and won’t end up in a landfill for the next 200 years if and when you decide to replace them. Cork is another green option for floors. Kitchens, bathrooms and bedrooms can all benefit from the breathable, highly sustainable material. It provides natural insulation for floors, too.
6. Window coverings: Check local charity shops and places such as Value Village to recycle previously enjoyed curtains. With a little bit of ingenuity your finds can be reworked to fit your window or remade into roman blinds or café curtains. Vintage table linens or colourful sheets can also be reinvented to create unique window coverings. If you’re shopping for new, hemp, linen, soy and organic cotton are a small number of the eco-friendly fabrics available. Many of these fabrics are biodegradable, renewable and non-toxic.
7. Bathrooms: Renovating your bathroom? Instead of buying a new vanity and sink, consider adding character with an antique dresser modified to fit a recycled sink and taps for a portion of the price of new, plus you’ll get more bang for your buck with a truly distinctive look. Check your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for sinks and taps.
8. A fresh coat: If your furniture is looking chipped, worn or scratched, why not paint it? You can hide repair work, scratches and scuffs with a quick layer of paint. Inherited an old, dark dining table and chairs? Lift the whole look with white paint. Try leaving the top of the dining table as it is or enhance it with a layer of varnish, and paint the legs and the chairs white. Recover the seats of the chairs with a bright fabric, and you will have a completely new casual country chic look.
9. Lighting: Brighten your decor with LED lights – replace all of your incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs. They are a bit more costly initially, but once you’ve made the switch, replacing light bulbs will become an infrequent chore. Instead of adding more ceiling lights, choose table lamps: they use less energy, cozy up a room and can be moved around for task and ambient lighting.
10. Change doors: The Habitat for Humanity ReStore has kitchen cupboard doors starting at $2, and full doors starting at $15, which can help you achieve a funky vintage or eclectic look. Pick up a vintage tin ceiling tile and use it as a notice board with magnets that you make yourself.
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