Sustainable furniture is a new buzzword for a new type of furnishing product. Those eco friendly furniture companies who make and manufacture green are committed to producing products that are non-toxic, environmentally friendly and safe enough to eat off of without contamination.
Enter almost any home today and you are immediately hit with a number of air-borne pollutants and toxins that you cannot even see. This occurs in any home, office or other space where furniture and fabrics are used. Over the last few years, a new method of eco friendly furniture making has been occurring.
One of the first steps to eco friendly furniture is to use wood in the construction that comes from a sustainable forest. Gone are the exotic woods found only in the few remaining rainforests, instead these woods are found in areas managed by “silviculture” techniques. For every tree taken, another is either planted or left to grow to full maturity.
Second, is the use of non-toxic bonding agents. Many types of glue, especially used in imported furniture, release formaldehyde and other air-borne chemicals into the home or surrounding area. By using non-toxic glues, green manufactures give their customers a product that produces no emission in their homes.
The third step to green furniture is the finish. Many chemicals are used in lacquers, varnishes and other methods of finishing a furniture piece. By using FDA approved oil and water based finishes, green builders guarantee non-toxicity of the woods surfaces.
Create An Eco Friendly Baby Nursery Or Kids Room
In our attempt to revert back to a Green lifestyle, it’s only fitting to use Green principles and eco friendly baby furniture when designing a baby’s or kids room. After all, a newborn will spend an average of 17 hours a day in their nursery, and it should be an environment filtered from toxins.
Here are some of the key points to consider when setting up a green baby nursery and buying eco friendly furniture.
Kids furniture should be designed to be environmentally-friendly. This way, parents can be confident that their little ones stay healthy. Organic green furniture has gone mainstream, the trend began a few years ago, and is becoming more and more popular.
Discover eco friendly modern furniture here:
All urbangreen furniture designs for kids lack harmful pollutants, making them very kid-friendly.
Paint: Use one of the new water-based, low-volatile organic compound paints and take your friends or family up on their request to help. If you’re pregnant, you shouldn’t be doing the painting. Try and complete the paint job at least a month before baby arrives to give it time to cure.
Flooring: Carpets are nice and soft for babies to crawl on, but they can harbor toxic material and bacteria. VOC’s can be found in the fibers, backing and glue as well as any stain resistant treatments that may have been applied. If you must go that route, choose an all-natural, biodegradable carpet made from wool fibers and no toxic adhesives. A better choice is a solid floor such as linoleum, cork or wood. Use natural fiber throw rugs with a non-slipping back.
Crib: Choose real wood with natural finishes since the press wood versions can emit formaldehyde. The bedding should be an organic untreated material made from cotton or wool.
Window Decor & Coverings: Aluminum mini-blinds or wooden shutters are easy to keep clean and do a great job of adjusting the light levels.
Toys: Most toys are made of plastic, which is a major contributor to indoor air pollution. Try to purchase natural cloth or wood toys wherever possible.
Airflow: Make certain there is adequate ventilation in the nursery that allows for fresh air, but no drafts. An Air filter is also very effective, but use one that has both a HEPA filter and activated military carbon cloth. Change your furnace filters every three months to reduce dust and pollen.
Cleaning: Use 100 percent biodegradable nontoxic cleaning products, like baking soda for example.
Going Green With LED Lamps
We are all familiar with the traditional incandescent light bulb. These bulbs are filled with a gas and then a filament is stretched across the inside. When electricity is run across the filament, it heats up to often very high temperatures. The bulb’s glow is a result of the filament heating up.
The heat is a result of wasted energy. Incandescent bulbs also suffer from inherent fragility. These lights weaken over time as the heat separates atoms from the whole and causes thin spots in the filament. Eventually these thin spots will break and you will need to replace the bulb.
More and more home, apartment and office owners are looking for ways to go for green lighting solutions and eco friendly furniture. The benefits not only improve the quality of our environment, but they also make for significant cost deduction at the end of the year. As energy efficiency is becoming more prevalent in household lighting and home lighting design is becoming more popular, it is no surprise that eco friendly lighting are coming to the forefront as a modern home design and stylish choice for illumination.
An alternative light to the incandescent is the halogen bulb. In a halogen bulb the envelope that holds the filament is a lot smaller, made of quartz and is filled with a halogen gas. These bulbs can burn a bit brighter and will last for longer periods of time. It is halogen lighting that is currently used quite often by movie theaters, television studios and movie sets. These bulbs are still heat inefficient, however. The most common halogen light used for indoor and outdoor home lighting is the twelve volt MR16 halogen light.
With energy saving compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) you take the good with the bad. They contain a minuscule amount of mercury that is especially harmful to the brains of both fetuses and children. Additionally relatively high amounts of blue light causing sleep disturbance. Do not throw old CFLs away in your household garbage as this can lead to a release of mercury into the environment through breakage and leakage.
The LED, light-emitting diode, bulb is a culmination of the best of both the incandescent and halogen worlds but with the efficiency that neither can provide. In an LED bulb, the science on which it is based is completely different from the other two options. There is no filament and very little heat. The light source is a diode that emits light when electricity is applied. This mechanism for creating light allows for much lower energy use, brighter light, and longer lasting bulbs.
One of the most common LED home light bulbs available is the LED Lens Reflector. These bulbs can replace any halogen bulb up to twenty watts. The reflector can burn continuously for more than 50,000 hours before needing to be replaced.
That is more than five years of continuous use and over thirty years if the bulbs burn an average of four hours a day. LED home bulbs are over ninety percent more efficient than a halogen bulb and can be operated for pennies a year. These features make them perfect for moving your home – kitchen, living room, game room; you name it – to a more environmentally conscious dwelling.
Outdoor applications for LED lights are many. They work well for outdoor accent lighting because of the many color options available and can be adjusted to be both spotlights and security flood lights.
Updating light fixtures goes great with eco friendly living room, eco friendly furniture or eco friendly bedroom furniture and is an excellent way to reduce household costs, save energy and at the same time improve upon your home lighting design.
For those concerned about health and our environment, going green in your home is the perfect solution. Eco friendly furniture may cost a bit more, but the piece of mind you receive is priceless.
