Home – Chopand Wokaz

Out of growing concern for our environment, many members of our society are turning to eco-friendlier lifestyles. If you’re one of them, or you wish to become, you can start by making changes at your own home. Making it greener will have many significant benefits for you and the environment, including a decrease in your monthly bills, air quality improvement, increase in the value of your home, healthier home environment, reduction in harmful environmental impacts, and many others. Additionally, implementing several green upgrades won’t be at the expense of style or comfort, which means that you’ll be able to have a home that’s both trendy and energy-efficient.

Eco-Friendly Lighting Solutions

Instead of sticking to incandescent light bulbs, you should consider replacing them with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) or light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These lighting options will lead to a decrease in greenhouse gas emission, and you will save approximately 66% more energy. Additionally, they last longer, and will consequently lead to a reduction in your electricity bills. If you’re reluctant to give up the glow of incandescent bulbs, you should know that there are various types of CFLs that differ in size, colour, shape and brightness, which means that you can easily find a type that meets your needs. Finally, the easiest option when it comes to saving energy is turning off lights when you don’t need them!

Water Conservation

Implementing several simple, but efficient green measures for conserving water will result in a positive impact on our environment and reduction in your water bills. Instead of taking a bath every day, you should leave baths for a special occasion and take a shower instead. Another simple step that you can take is turning off the tap while you’re brushing teeth or soaping the dishes. You shouldn’t leave water running while you’re doing something else. When it comes to flushing toilets, which accounts for 30 percent of indoor water use, you shouldn’t dispose items such as wet wipes down the toilet. Instead, throw them to the trash and evade both blocking the sewage system and wasting water. You can conserve water by installing low-flow showerheads, taps and toilets and fixing leaky taps and pipes.

Improving Air Quality

When you consider the fact that indoor air pollution can lead to serious health issues, including lung cancer, stroke, pneumonia and others, you cannot disregard the importance of improving air quality in your home. The simplest solution is adding indoor plants to your home, or even better, growing them. Since they act as natural air purifiers, they can absorb harmful airborne pollutants and allergens emitted from electronics, furniture, aerosols, and the like. Another efficient solution is taking smoking outside, since cigarettes are fraught with toxic chemicals. The list of other options that you can use to combat indoor air pollution includes opting for eco-friendly scents instead of chemical and synthetic ones, using no or low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) such as paints or cleaning products, etc.

Green Materials

Among the most popular eco-friendly materials is bamboo, since it’s world’s fastest growing plant. This makes it the perfect solution for floors, since it’s both stylish and environmentally friendly. Other materials that you should consider using are organic cotton for your sheets, wool blankets instead of polyester ones, and cork for furniture, flooring and wall panels.

What about the Financing?

You might say that making your home energy-efficient might require a sizeable amount of money that you don’t have. However, if you’re willing to contribute to the environment preservation, you’ll be happy to hear that there are loans that you can take to make your house greener. Such financing is meant for energy-efficient improvements and individuals willing to make a change.

By implementing several simple changes and embracing green activities within your home, you can improve your life quality and preserve the environment. All you need is a bit of will and you can start changing the world starting from your home.

Minimalistic Living Room Designs

The living room is supposed to be the most functional and best arranged room in the house, since most people spend more time in it than in any other room. Also, you guests are invited to it and it’s often the first and only room they get to see. If you want to impress them, you need to dedicate a lot of attention to decorating your living room.

What most people go for these days is the minimalist style, which is all about functionality, brightness and freshness. Such rooms ooze positivity and elegance, since they are free of clutter, which is so common in many homes, and are quite minimalistic. In terms of colours, there are various shades of black, grey and white, although it’s not uncommon to find traces of bright colours, such as green or orange.

The fact that such rooms don’t feature a lot of furniture means they are much easier to clean, which is another great benefit. So, what do you need to do if you want to have a minimalistic living room?

Furniture

As we’ve already said, less is more. Stick only to the most necessary items, such as a sofa or armchairs, and a coffee table. The items should feature straight lines and they should be devoid of any elaborate decorations.

You may wish to add a centrepiece if you want to achieve the dramatic effect, but you need to select it carefully, so that it provides contrast, either in terms of its size, colour or material. For example, stained glass is increasingly popular, since it makes the room much livelier, particularly when natural textile is used in the room.

Colours

Although the most popular colours are black, grey and white, you may wish to add details in bright colours to provide a dramatic effect. If you choose some neutral colours, you might want to consider adding a green detail to achieve such an effect.

Another thing you probably need to do is create contrast between the colour of your sofa and your new floor rugs. For example, you can have a very nice combination of black and white furniture with a circle, patterned carpet.

Lots of people have opted for a combination of red and black furniture, but in that case you need to paint your walls in a very light colour.If you’re short of ideas, check out some of the thousands of pics available on the internet.

Other Features

Ideally, you living room should have large widows or, at least, enough of them to provide a lot of light, since modern minimalism is all about brightness. Bright rooms are more inviting and positive and people feel relaxed when spending time in them.

Since one of the characteristic of such living rooms is that they are clutter-free, you need to get rid of any unnecessary items or hide them well. If you arrange for your storage to be well-hidden, the impression everyone will get is that your living room is neat and organised.

Sometimes you can’t use your old furniture if you want to turn your living room into a minimalistic one, which means you have to buy or have new items custom-made. If that’s the case, think carefully about how you’re going to arrange them and whether you’ll be able to maximise the use of space. If you feel helpless and all the ideas you’ve browsed are simply too overwhelming, you might want to hire an expert interior designer, who can help you achieve your dream of having a modern living room.

In conclusion, your shapes need to be geometric, you need as much light as possible, while the floor should be quite bright. The dominant colours should be neutral, but some details in bright colours are more than welcome. Those are the basic rules, but it’s your living room, so you’re the one who’ll have the final say.