Eco-Friendly Home Tips To Embrace In 2022

Looking for eco-friendly home ideas?

Packed with handy tips and tricks, this post is full of eco-friendly ideas for the home.

Whether you’re a devoted environmentalist or you simply want a more energy-efficient home, giving your home an eco-friendly decor makeover benefits you and the planet.

That’s why we’re helping you put together a plan for achieving eco-friendly home decor that puts the Earth first without cutting corners on style.

There are many ways to pull off eco-friendly decor in every room of the home. From introducing more plant life and trading out single-use materials to installing a suite of innovative smart home tech, here are some of our favourites.

Opt for eco-friendly tiles

Tiles offer an environmentally friendly option for floors and walls throughout your home, making them a must-have for any eco-friendly home. That’s because they’re:

• Sustainable: made from natural and sustainable materials that can be sourced from anywhere, tiles can dramatically lower transport footprints
• Non-toxic: containing recycled materials like aluminium and glass, many modern ceramic and porcelain tiles are chemically neutral. The same can’t be said for some carpets and linoleum that contain harmful toxins and pollutants
• Durable: incredibly hard and strong, tiles provide a durable solution for walls and floors. This will save you money on frequent replacements and reduce landfill waste, as many eco-friendly tiles can be recycled into building materials like brick and cement
• Practical: tiles provide a waterproof, stain and scratch-resistant surface that requires little maintenance. Regular wiping with eco-friendly cleaning products or just vinegar and water will ensure your tiles stay looking pristine
• Energy-efficient: ceramic tiles absorb heat from the sun throughout the day, releasing it at night to create a passive solar design in your home, which can make your home extra energy efficient

It’s clear that using tiles as part of your eco-friendly home decor comes with a raft of benefits. But how can you commit to them the right way?

Well, the key here is to exploit their durability, opting for an enduring style and colour instead of jumping on the latest trend.

Neutral hues like beige, grey and white deliver a timeless backdrop for walls and floors that can be embellished with on-trend accents as and when the mood suits. 

Equally, opting for classic materials like natural stone or wood-effect tiles over fashionable patterned options could help you to curate a long-lasting interior with an evergreen appeal. 

Champion sustainable materials

Tiles aren’t your only option when it comes to eco-friendly home decor and sustainable interior materials.

For bigger eco-friendly home ideas that involve structural changes, there are plenty of environmentally friendly building material options available.

One option is wood. Wood is an excellent choice for lightweight construction projects, as well as finishing touches like wooden furniture, cabinetry and decorative detailing. The key here is to make sure the timber comes from an ethical logging operation or reclaimed wood.

If you need a strong and solid material, concrete mixes that include naturally-sourced materials like hemp, bamboo or recycled plastic could be the way to go. With fewer petrochemicals and lighter to transport than standard concrete, they’ll give you that raw, industrial look while being kind to the planet.

Sustainability isn’t just for structural elements of your eco-friendly decor – even small changes can be made with sustainability in mind. 

For instance, if you want to give your kitchen a fresh new look, swapping out your tired worktop for a granite or marble version that will survive decades of use could be all that’s needed. Or, shop for furnishings made from natural, sustainable materials for those all-important finishing touches.  

Looking beyond the traditional towards eco-friendly materials is certainly the way forward to a more sustainable future. In today’s retail landscape, there are so many ways to achieve your eco-friendly home ideas, meaning every inch of your new project is attuned to the environment.

Go for vintage finds

If you’re committed to curating eco-friendly home decor, secondhand furniture is a must. 

Vintage pieces will give your home bags of character and up the stakes on its eco-friendly credentials in one fell swoop – win!

Unlike your average mass-produced flat-pack furniture, vintage pieces have been made to last, hence why they’re still going strong decades later. This exceptional durability alone gives them extra eco-friendly Brownie points, but it’s not their only perk. 

By scouring secondhand furniture shops, car boot sales and keeping a keen eye out for bargains online, you can help the environment by breathing new life into reclaimed furniture. In turn, this can lessen the demand for new furniture that may be manufactured from less-than-ethical wood sources.

Investing in high-quality antique pieces can also save you money. With a keen eye for a bargain and a little elbow grease, you can easily and quickly transform preloved furniture into eye-catching focal features. 

From sturdy, solid oak dining tables and chairs to ornate dressers, mirrors and more, a fresh lick of non-toxic paint or fabric reupholstering can revive tired antiques in no time. The end result is an eco-friendly decor that’s brimming with charm, personality and sustainability, keeping you and the planet happy. 

Tap into the biophilia trend

Biophilia home interior design has been on the rise for some years now. Why? Because it’s been bringing the beauty and benefits of nature into our everyday living spaces by exploiting natural daylight and plant life.

This is perfect for eco-conscious homeowners looking to upgrade their homes with organic touches. From natural daylight to an abundance of indoor plants, natural materials and greenery offer so much scope for sustainable home decor. 

For one, plants can help purify the air in your home, absorbing carbon dioxide and converting it into oxygen through photosynthesis. They’re also thought to help reduce stress and anxiety, which is always good if you want to keep a positive mindset throughout 2022. 

Another way to bring a natural feel to your home’s interior is to harness the power of natural light – this will help the plants grow, too. Keep base colour palettes light and neutral and use trusty mirrors opposite or adjacent to windows to help optimise the amount of daylight in the room. 

Obviously, in the evenings and the dead of winter, you’ll need a little artificial help to make your living spaces feel light yet homely. An obvious choice here is eco-friendly LED lights, as well as solar-powered lamps and candles. 

Elsewhere, introduce rustic, organic touches throughout your home. Think cotton, linen and wool soft furnishings and untreated wood, wicker and rattan for furniture. These environmentally responsible materials won’t just help the planet, they’ll also give a wonderfully layered and homely feel to your eco-friendly home decor. 

When it comes to eco-friendly ideas for the home, you don’t have to do everything at once to make a difference. Hand-picking tips and ideas that suit you will bring you one step closer to transforming your home into an energy-efficient space that protects and respects the environment, minimises your monthly bills and looks drop-dead gorgeous doing it.

When it comes to choosing the right tiles for your eco-friendly home decor, you’ll find plenty of sustainable tile options in our huge range of practical floor tiles and stylish wall tiles. Take a look right now, or keep reading the Tiles Direct blog for even more home decor inspiration.