The living room is a very important spot of the house in your daily life. It serves multipurpose, as an area to entertain and mingle with guests, watch movies with family, play games with kids, eating dinners and socialize with friends. So it becomes quite necessary to give priority and use eco-friendly and affordable living room decor items. However, do you know the way your home decoration has a great impact on the environment?
What are eco-friendly home decorations? Why use them?
Eco-friendly decorations are manufactured with natural and sustainable sources, without using toxic and harsh chemicals and any earth-harming substances. Whether you are an environmentalist or not, using eco-friendly home decor is good for the planet and our health.
Is eco-friendly home decor expensive?
The visible price of earth-supporting home decor is higher than non-sustainable items, but the invisible cost of our Earth and average annual price may be lower. For example, a solid wood chair is much more expensive than a plastic chair, but in the long run, a solid wood chair under proper maintenance can be used for decades, which is impossible to achieve on a plastic chair. Plastic chairs are disposable items, but solid wood chairs can be transformed into any style you would like with eco-friendly paint. Moreover, the environmental cost behind a plastic chair is huge. A plastic chair needs more than a hundred years to decompose.
How to decorate living room in eco-friendly and affordable ways?
If you want to make your home more sustainable but you’re not sure where to begin or don’t exactly have the budget for high-quality eco-friendly decor. Here are some tricks and tips that can be followed to refurbish your living room without having to pay an arm and a leg.
1. Accurate measurement makes a good start to decorate living room.
While planning to redesign your room, always take measurements of the essential elements like rugs, furniture, artwork, curtains. Also, make sure to measure the area where you wish to place them. This will avoid unnecessary spending on items that may be too big or too small to fit in your room.
2. Good air circulation and insulation make sustainable living room decor.
Depending on your priority for traditional, modern, contemporary, casual, formal, bold, or submissive style, the living room can be planned accordingly. It should be a place where you should feel comfortable. A cozy and sustainable home must have proper air circulation and insulation in all rooms. The better air circulation and insulation your rooms have, the less you will have to pay for energy in hot and cold weather every year, and the better for our environment. If you feel like your rooms constantly feel warmer than they should be, check whether your insulation needs to be updated. You can even purchase eco-friendly insulation to stay green and make your rooms the perfect temperature.
Large windows can improve air circulation in the living room. And adding one or two ceiling fans can also achieve this goal.
3. Sufficient natural lighting brightens the living room.
This factor decides the overall look of the room. It is an excellent way to create ambiance and mood. The most eco-friendly and effective way to utilize lighting in the living room is to allow natural sunlight to come in through windows. The more natural lighting a room has, the less electricity you will need to use.
If your living room lacks an abundance of natural lighting, you can still keep your rooms eco-friendly by switching out regular light bulbs with green energy-saving light bulbs. There are three types of lighting like accent, task, and ambient. These light sources should be placed suitably all through the room.
Light sources like table and floor lamps, decorative chandeliers, and wall fixtures are some of the options that should be smartly chosen and placed without spending a huge amount. Picture lights on an artwork or gallery wall can give a professional look to your room. Go for lampshades that can be easily tailored according to seasonal accessories to give a dynamic feel to the living room.
4. Furniture rearrangement creates a smart and spacious living room.
Planning the rearrangement of your furniture is one crucial trick to giving a new look to your living room without spending much. Dividing the living room into various segments like a conversation area, a focal point area with a smooth passage should be considered.
Instead of those traditional looks, go for a different concept like pulling the furniture away from the wall. Remove some unwanted furniture to make the room look bigger and spacious. Shop around your home like it’s a store and reorganize your bookshelf by replacing different decor that you found from other rooms. If you are making television your focal point, then rearrange the furniture around it accordingly.
The sofas should be placed at such a distance that the seats are almost 8 feet apart for facilitating the conversation. Choose fewer and smaller seating pieces to create a cozy living room.
Revamping your furniture with paint, choosing a new cover for a sofa, new throw pillows or chair can give a new look to your vintage furniture. This method involves minimal expenditure with a smart, new look.
5. Smart choice of rugs makes your living room decor last longer and healthier.
Infusing a living room with energy and minimizing the shabby areas of the room can be attained by including a patterned rug. So try to introduce patterned, textured, and colored rug to your seating area. Rugs with different patterns and materials give a sense of life to the rooms that balance well with the entire scheme. For example, wooly winter rug and jute summer rug can be used alternately to add comfy or elegance to your living room.
While purchasing a rug, make sure that you know the sizes of your rugs. If the rug size is too small, then the entire room will look fragmented. To avoid that situation, the right size and placement of the furniture around it are very crucial.
All the furniture should be placed on the top of the rug, with all the front legs resting on the rug area. There should be at least 10-20 inches of space between the room wall and the rug’s edges.
An eco-friendly room should stay far away from the wall-to-wall carpet of any material. Because carpet production will do harm to the environment. In addition, carpets will gather dust mites, dirt and stains, which will cause health problems, such as allergies, asthma.
6. Indoor greenery plants are the most affordable way to make your living room alive.
Indoor plants make the room livelier. It adds both color and freshness to the room at a minimal cost. Opt for inexpensive, small, budget-friendly, high-quality plants. To spread greenery around your room, arrange small plants in groups at different heights.
If you still have some money left with you, spend it on arranging a small water fountain fitted with green plants and concealed ambient lighting. You can include an artificial plant in your decoration if maintaining real plants becomes an issue.
7. Wall artwork can express your personality.
For filling up your empty wall, add inexpensive, affordable fabric wall hangings instead of those heavy framed photos and pictures. It is unnecessary to decorate the wall with expensive items to make the room look more unified and attractive. You can also fill the wall with record covers, photos, pieces of wallpaper.
Positioning of varying sizes of artwork and frames should be equally spaced and well balanced on the wall. Art is imagination, and it differs for every individual. So just make your basics of wall artwork clear and follow your heart.
8. Give your living room a new look with eco-friendly paint.
It is one of the easiest means to give a new splash of color to your living room. Fresh paint always makes rooms feel new again and brighter than before. When you’re purchasing paint, though, you must find paint that is free of VOCs, which, as mentioned earlier, are incredibly harmful chemicals in paint that are harmful to both environment and your health. You can choose good-quality, low-priced paint or save your pocket by buying a small can and paint one wall.
Luckily, finding sustainable paint is becoming more accessible than ever. All it takes is a bit of research to find out where you can get eco-friendly paint in your area. You could also go to your local home improvement store and ask to see the paint without VOCs. Once you find a color that wows you, watch your once drab walls turn beautiful as new and feel good about supporting the environment with your paint choice.
However, painting should be done as the final step after choosing expensive pieces like artwork, furniture, rugs, etc.
Decorating the living room elements with contrasting schemes gives it a rich and dynamic look with immense depth and balance.
9. Sustainable texture has a good touch.
The texture is vital for making the room feel comfortable, warm, and cozy. So include elements in leather, cotton, wool, stone, metal, glass to add texture to the room. The materials used should be comfortable and feel good when touched.
Bright and seasonally trend cushions and patterned carpets can bring life to your room. Go for cotton pillow covers in summer and warm woolen elements in winters. Similarly, wooly winter rug and jute summer rug can be used alternately to add elegance to your living room.
10. Wallpaper is not expensive but achieves elegance.
For a simple and sober living area, go for wallpapers. Economically wall stickers can be a good choice to refurbish your living space.
11. Adding murals to your living room is adding your creativity.
Adding a mural to the living room can be one of the best economically cheaper ideas. It is suitable for those living on rent as murals are not as permanent as wallpaper and paint. It is easy to apply on the walls in minutes.
12. Flooring refurbishment can be cost-effective.
Spending on flooring can be an over-budget task. But to refurbish your damaged tiles or shabby floors, you can go for some economical and good-quality flooring alternatives available in the market. Some of the widely used cost-effective flooring options are vinyl tiles and wooden laminates.
This modern flooring technique is easy to install on top of any existing surface floor like tile or cement, thereby saving time and energy.
13. Fresh living room curtains match your living room decor.
You get bored of those faded curtains which look shabby at the back of your room. It may also happen that it is not matching your space. Replace the older ones with curtains that match your wall color and the furniture of the room. Usually, this gives a brighter and fresh look to the room.
Also, make sure to hang them few inches above the window frame to make the window appear larger. Generally, this makes the room look spacious and roomy.
14. Existing décor accessories can be reused in new ways.
While planning your budget and shopping for things, it is always important to look around your house. It may happen that some piece of furniture that may be left unused in your bedroom, garage or loft, would do wonders when placed smartly in your living room. Further, this avoids unwanted expenditure and creates a nice living room decor within your budget.
15. It is amazing when you choose candles wisely.
Candles can make great additions to living room decor and give off dreamy low lighting and fantastic smelling scents. Great candles are made of organic and natural ingredients, such as soy wax, coconut wax, or beeswax with natural floral essential oil candles with cotton wicks.
Try to do a bit of research and look into candle brands. Avoid buying candles made of paraffin wax and harmful volatile organic compounds. Throw away candles with a harsh smell that gives you a headache while burning.
16. Second-hand options are better.
Spending on second-hand furniture is much cheaper and looks elegant when suitably placed in the room. You can always look for places like eBay, Etsy, Facebook for good quality, second-hand furniture.
Make a list of the pieces that you wish to purchase, along with their measurements. Also, I prefer to go for interesting shapes than colors.
Redesigning your living room is possible within your budget. But for doing that, you need to focus on the above tips. It can be a wall paint, kind of furniture you have and the one you need to buy, flooring coverings, window decoration and arrangement of accessories, etc. This article can be an appropriate guide to help you travel along with the living room decor.
