How green is your house? Channel your sustainable side with these eco friendly interior ideas

Doing your bit for the environment doesn’t have to stop at what you eat or the clothes you wear. Ethical and sustainable living can be incorporated into most aspects of your life, including with how you decorate your home.

The popularity of living an eco-friendly or vegan lifestyle has risen significantly, with influences from social media, celebrities and TV shows consistently raising awareness and highlighting the benefits that come along with making simple, yet sustainable changes to your everyday life.

Because of its growing popularity, we’ve pulled together a variety of ways you can make your home, and its furnishings, more sustainable while still maintaining its style.

Aesthetic alternatives

From sofas made from cactus plant to lampshades crafted from mushrooms, there’s now an array of vegan materials that can be used throughout a home. Interior designers and high-street brands have both started looking to more green alternatives to furnish their products and are steering away from using materials such as leather in their designs.

The innovation behind such fabrics has developed ten-fold, and you may be surprised at the manufacturing techniques behind your favourite furniture and homeware. The same cork that is keeping your bottle of wine fresh can also be used to make your ‘leather’ sofa, while fibres from the soybean or ‘vegetable cashmere’, can create an ethical throw for the end of your bed.

Work from waste

Before you throw away the grounds from your morning coffee or your plastic water bottle, you might want to consider how these pieces of everyday waste can be reused and reworked into something special. We’re constantly being reminded of how important it is to compost and recycle, but some innovators have taken the commitment to reducing waste one step further.

Creating home accessories from coffee might seem like an impossible task, however designers such as Sarah Christensen have been demonstrating just how versatile this former waste product is. Here, Christensen has used a mix of coffee grounds as an eco-friendly alternative to resin to craft a collection of beautiful plant pots and vases.

Equally, the humble plastic water bottle can be transformed into an array of fantastic fabrics and materials - from cushions and rugs, to footstools and dining room chairs, recycled PET bottles can be made into almost anything.

DIY Details

Making the switch to an eco-friendlier interior design doesn’t necessarily mean an expensive switch of furniture. Smaller accessories can also be crafted at home to add that personal touch. Creating the perfect home scent can often mean burning expensive candles or shopping for designer diffusers, however there’s an inexpensive and sustainable way you can do it yourself.

The trend of making your own soy candles and wax melts has taken off in the past few years, with many adopting candle making as a hobby or side hustle. While saving you money in the long-run, candle making allows you to create a unique, signature scent for your home. The benefit of only needing soy wax and essential oils is that you can mix up which smells you have around the house and try out different oils to see which you prefer. An extra bonus that comes with burning soy candles instead of wax, is that you’ll avoid any of those black smoke marks that otherwise stick to your walls and ceiling.

If you’ve got any tips or tricks to have a more vegan-friendly and ethical home, share them with us on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels.