It seems inescapable that the way we live here in the UK and around the world is changing. The impacts of the global economy, the search for sustainable fuel sources and climate change have impacted on us all over the last few years. And when it comes to the home, we will see these [...]
Category Archives: Recycling / upcycling
Bored Of Cotton? Here Are Some Brilliant New and Unique Sustainable Fabrics For The Home
March 1, 2012 – 4:24 pm
It has has been said that the battle for greater sustainability in the home will be fought on a material front. I for one am always appalled at the hidden damage many conventional materials that we use create and am similarly thrilled to find new materials that tackle the same functional issues but without [...]
Eco Home Composting: future designs on home food waste
February 8, 2012 – 10:33 am
Ok, so my guilty secret is out. I really find it tough to recycle food waste and scraps from my kitchen. And I suspect I’m not the only one. It’s the smells coming from the compost caddy, the emptying into my enormous outdoor composter, and then getting stuck in to turn and farm this ready-made [...]
Recycling your old kitchen: ingredients for better living
January 12, 2012 – 4:04 pm
Designing a new kitchen is an exciting opportunity to really focus on reducing your future use of resources in one of the most energy-hungry rooms in the house. But just what do you do with your old kitchen? It’s shocking how many kitchens are replaced before the end of their useful life, and this is [...]
Are You Flushing Money Down The Toilet? Eco homes need water management
December 13, 2011 – 3:45 pm
It’s shocking to think that the average toilet uses between six- and nine-litres per flush, with some older cisterns using up to thirteen-litres. Imagine that quantity of plastic mineral water bottles stacked up and it’s even more shocking. This is, after all, drinking quality water, and actually accounts for around 30% of the total water usage [...]
My favourite Eco-Friendly Christmas Decorations for this Year
December 9, 2011 – 4:59 pm
What’s not to love about this mid winter festival of ours, although every year I get hit with a pang of just how am I going to do all this decorating and Christmassy stuff and still make it sustainable. Creativity, inspiration and upcycling is what’s called for. When it comes to decorating my own tree [...]
Sofa, So Green
December 2, 2011 – 3:38 pm
Choosing eco home furnishings can be really tricky. Particularly for items that are a little more complex in their manufacture and don’t necessarily have a daily energy use. Subsequently, the provenance of manufacture and materials, embodied energy and durability of these pieces really comes into question. Sofas are a prime example of a high-ticket, [...]
Eco homes need eco heating: My Top Five Favourite Wood Burning Stoves
November 29, 2011 – 2:53 pm
With winter setting in and chilly temperatures just around the corner (this mild spell can’t last forever), I thought I’d share my favourite wood burning stoves with you. Come the winter, there aren’t many inanimate objects in my house that I love as much as my wood burning stove. There’s nothing like cycling home [...]
A Million Little Pieces: The Magic of Mosaics
November 1, 2011 – 12:00 pm
Patchworks are a key way to use materials in the world of eco design. And I just love them. Simply put, they offer the opportunity for small, otherwise unusable parts of material to have a new and useful life. Whilst big slabs of materials might look bold and impressive, they are also inefficient as they [...]
10 Green Bottles…And Just What Eco Designers Did With Them Next
October 25, 2011 – 8:32 am
We take so many of the materials we use and dispose of everyday for granted. But if we were just to stop for a moment and take a closer look, we might see incredible potential in the products we often call rubbish. What I love about the trend for upcycling wine bottles is that you [...]
