Tips and tricks for a more sustainable living room.

The concept of creating a more sustainable home can be a daunting process, particularly when our lifestyles often sway towards a trend driven approach thanks to sights such as Pinterest and Instagram influencing our consumer habits. However, tackling sustainable homeware can be easy through taking varied approaches and, quite often, this works out much cheaper!

When searching for new items such as blankets and cushions, it can be easy to reach for all items needed on one specific site or in one specific store, but the negatives of this can create higher costs for your wallet, whilst also creating a less unique interior look in your home. I find this particularly applies when searching for living room accessories, often websites and stores will have various set-ups featuring the items in a mock living room. This can sometimes make you assume that you need all the items in these mock-ups when realistically, this is causing over consumption and encouraging you to waste your money. So, I have compiled some tips and tricks with a few brand recommendations that might help you create a more sustainable living room when the time comes!

1. Make a list of everything you already have.

This may sound self-explanatory but writing a list and breaking it down into potential colour schemes can be really helpful in general for making sure things coordinate, but also this will prevent you from buying unnecessary items and save you money! If the items you have are patterned, or you have gone off the colours, consider donating to charity, adding patches of different fabric to make them look newer or follow a new colour scheme.

2. if you are a fellow plant lover...... create your own pots!

One of the cheapest and planet friendly items in your living room could be a lovely plant pot, made from natural materials such as terracotta or recycled ocean plastic like the one below! This is just an example of a design, but these could be in all sorts of colour schemes to match your interior. Or, if you don't feel the creative juices flowing, these lovely ones are available to buy from Etsy! Etsy is a particularly good site for finding handmade, sustainable housewares, which can also support independent sellers rather than huge businesses.

3. Use second hand selling sights to give good quality items a new home

This tip is both cost effective and prevents unnecessary waste and overconsumption. Sights such as Ebay, Facebook Marketplace and Preloved are amazing for finding second hand furnishings such as sofas, living room accessories and artwork to spice up your wall spaces. These are often great for bargain hunters and those that specifically like vintage/unique items.

4. Create our own cushions and quilts from old clothing and textiles

Although some may not have the time to create their own living room furnishings, this is such a sustainable, rewarding, and creative tip for a cheaper alternative to brand new furnishings. Thousands of tonnes of textile and clothing is thrown away each year so why not cut up the items you no longer use and put them to a new use! This can also keepsake memories, like the example below.

By using some of these tips, it can really make your house truly unique and give some more character to your living spaces, whilst helping reduce consumption or man-made fibres and the need for new items. Is there anything you have created for your home by hand?

izzy x