Eco-Friendly Interior Decorating Ideas

Going green encompasses many things from consuming organically grown food to recycling and conserving resources. One of its major aspects is having a green environment around us. This starts with an eco-friendly home and an eco-friendly interior decoration.

Eco-friendly interior decoration aims at providing a healthier environment to your family while responsibly utilizing nature's resources. At the same time you need not sacrifice style and comfort. Here are a few tips on going green with eco-friendly interior decorating ideas.

• A green home should use toxin-free interior paints. Many conventional paints emit certain toxic volatile organic compounds (VOC) at room temperature - they affect the indoor air quality and present long term health risks. Select zero-VOC paint for your home. You get durable, odorless zero-VOC paint from leading brands like Sherwin Williams in all colors and finishes for indoors, outdoors, ceilings and cabinets.

• Use furniture from easy-to-replenish sources like bamboo, corn and cork. Look for wooden furniture marked with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label - this means your furniture is made from wood obtained from eco-system conscious forestry practices. Preferably buy wooden furniture made from post-consumer recycled wood like construction material from old buildings, saw dust, etc. You can get durable and sturdy pieces of eco-friendly furniture for your home without compromising on fashion and elegance. EcoTimber provides information on many types of environmentally safe wood.

• Select the flooring for your home from recycled wood, bamboo or recycled glass tiles. Use eco-friendly adhesives that do not contain VOCs to lay the flooring.

• Select eco-friendly upholstery and curtains for your green home. Organic cotton, silk, hemp and bamboo are used in making the required fabrics for these furnishings.

• Use eco-friendly rugs and carpets made from bamboo, jute or wool and recycled rubber. They use toxin-free dyes and colors from vegetable sources. You can find attractive textures and patterns to suit every theme of your eco-friendly interior decoration.

• Recycle and reuse existing cabinets and molding as much as you can. You can give them a new look with refinishing and repainting.

• Provide your green home energy-efficient indoor and outdoor lighting with compact fluorescent bulbs. This will save energy that comes from non-renewable sources and also cut your electric bills.

• When you place potted plants in your home for interior decoration, use organic soil and organic fertilizers and pesticides.

Usually eco-friendly materials cost 10-30% more than their conventional counterparts. But with increasing demand and supply, we expect that the costs of living will drop significantly.

Green Home, a site for eco-friendly interior designing, provides a carbon dioxide calculator to compute your home's total carbon footprint. You can also interactively estimate the indoor air quality in your home. Use this to find out what changes you need to make to have a green home. Check out Viesso, Green Design and Eco-furniture for eco-friendly interior decorating furnishings.