How to Go Green with Your Living Room Furniture

A green lifestyle implies environmentally conscious living. This includes eco-friendly home décor and green furniture. Fortunately, with growing awareness many green options are available for furnishing your home. These furnishings are made from processes and chemicals that not only conserve natural resources, but also maintain high air quality in your home.

Reflect your environmentally conscious lifestyle in your living room furniture and décor with the following guide. Remember that when you go green with your living room furniture, you do not have to sacrifice style or comfort.

• Eco-friendly living room furniture is often made from renewable natural sources like bamboo, coconut, corn and cork. These raw materials are relatively easy to cultivate in abundance and replenish. Besides, the materials are sturdy and durable.

• Wooden furniture items place a heavy demand on wood. Traditionally forests were indiscriminately depleted to meet the demands. But unsafe harvesting has led to severe damages to the environment and natural resources. So a green décor should avoid using conventional wooden living room furniture. Fortunately there are green ways to use wood. Furniture pieces can be crafted from consciously harvested wood. Wooden furniture items certified with Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) label are made from wood that is retrieved through eco-friendly forest practices. Some manufacturers plant trees to compensate for their consumption of wood.

• Green living room furniture made from post-consumer recycled wood is another option you can consider. This kind of wood is obtained from construction materials recovered from old buildings. Some items use pre-consumer recycled wood which is obtained from industrial wastes like saw-dust.

• Green living room furniture typically uses harmless water based glues to bind pieces together and water based stains to color materials.

• Eco-friendly furniture upholstery and cushions are usually made from organic cotton, hemp, coconut fiber, natural latex, bamboo and other grasses, natural down feathers, wool and silk. Again, these raw materials are renewable and are processed without using harmful chemicals. So they are safe and non-allergic to your skin.

• If you are planning to upgrade your living room, consider reusing you old furniture as much as you can. You can refinish and polish old wood furniture with paints and varnishes that are free from volatile organic compounds (VOC) that give off harmful vapors of chemicals at room temperature. Consciously dispose the furniture you do not want. Donate them so that they can be reused or recycled.

Use eco-friendly rugs, curtains and decorative fittings to complete your green living room décor.

Look for elegant and eco-friendly living room furniture like sofas, loveseats, tables, entertainment/media centers, etc. at stores like Viesso, Green Design and Eco-furniture.