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6 Eco-Friendly Options 4 The Office

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I am pleased to share a wonderful blog post from a guest blogger Angela Taylor a blogger and aspiring designer.   While there is a lot of information focusing on green/eco-friendly options for the home, this is a wonderful focused look at what we can do specifically for our home or small office spaces in that regard.  Take a read and implement some of the great ideas!

Bamboo Dry Erase

 

6 Simple Eco-Friendly Elements for a Visually Striking Home Office

Green products for an environmentally-friendly work environment

The home office combines your professional and personal life—so it should, rightly so, be a reflection of you. Unfortunately, the home office is usually an after-thought and designated to a corner in your kitchen or living room. If you’re concerned about the environment, there are green products that you can incorporate into your home office to make it more environmentally friendly and more visually appealing as well. Considering this home office will be where you spend the majority of your day, it would make sense to make it as comfortable, functional and attractive as possible.

Here are our 6 simple Eco-friendly product recommendations for a visually pleasing home office that you can get inspired in:

1. Eco-friendly wall décor: Green wall décor is offered in various patterns and textures—plus it’s better for your health than conventional wallpapers that can contain chemicals. Look into attractive wall décor and coverings like:

  • Glass whiteboards—or glass dry erase boards provide a natural and safe surface for brainstorming
  • Eco-friendly wallpaper— made from natural renewable bamboo, rice paper, flax, cork, arrowroot and a mish-mash of recycled papers
  • Reed, cattail and paper weave murals—make beautiful wall décor with delicate dried leaves and natural grasses twisted together and making unique wall art
  • Ceramic and mica photo frames—are constructed from natural sands in the soil and formed into a beautiful variety of colors and sizes

2. Recycled office furniture: You can find some really great eclectic pieces of second hand office furniture at your local thrift shop or Salvation Army. A lot of large companies also throw out their office furniture rather than repairing it during an upgrade so you can salvage some top quality ergonomic office chairs and desks and save it being thrown into a landfill site.

3. Eco materials for your home office: You can find an abundant of environmentally-friendly and recycled materials for your home office, for instance:

  • Wheat board – for the walls (and it can double as a posting board) as well as floors
  • You can buy 4GB bamboo flash drives as opposed to the plastic variety
  • Moleskine notebooks (made of bamboo pulp) are waterproof with washable covers
  • Sustainable timber – for your desk and storage units
  • Recycled aluminum – again, for office desks, storage units and office chairs
  • Recycled glass – ideal for walls and attractive office desk tops
  • Recycled upholstery – great for throw pillows, stuffed bean bag chairs and desk chair coverings

4. Harness the power of sustainable energy: Look to natural resources with these really aesthetic pieces of office equipment:

5. Recycled or refurbished electronics: Akin to finding used office furniture from large corporations, you can often buy refurbished electronics for a fraction of the cost. Many large companies will host a used electronics sale when it is time to upgrade their computers, laptops, fax machines, photocopiers, printers and office telephones. You can feel good rescuing that refurbished laptop from a life in the scrap yard. Keep in mind that your home office electronics give off VOC emissions as well as other chemical vapors that pollute the air in your home. Try these additional energy-savings tips for a greener home office:

  • Use a laptop instead of a desktop computer—laptops use less energy
  • Unplug the printer, fax machine and computer when your day is over
  • Plug multiple electronics into one power bar so that you can turn them all off with one switch
  • Leave office equipment on timers so that everything automatically shuts down overnight
  • Minimize the number of office electronics you use by purchasing all in one photocopier/printer/scanner/ fax models
  • Use online fax and telephone
  • And when you are finished with your home office electronics, donate them to local schools, shelters or for reuse where needed

6. Refillable/reusable office supplies: When you look for office supplies—such as pens, pencils, files and ink cartridges for your printer—seek out refillable and reusable varieties. And also:

  • Look for recycled plastic products such as pens.
  • Buy pens and printer cartridges with non-toxic inks like vegetable- or soy-based ink
  • Buy multiple packs of pens, Post-it notes and staples to cut down your packaging waste
  • Reuse all of your elastic bands, thumb tacks and paper clips
  • Set up a recycling bin so you don’t throw used up items away

 

It’s Time—–Your Home Needs a Make-over Today

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Another guest blog post to share with you! An interesting point of view on the subject of when is the ‘right time’ to do some make-over work in your home.  A lot of us procrastinate because we are over whelmed or even scared to make changes to our home environment.  I am working with a client who read in her journal from January ,  2010 about what she wanted to do to her space and had put off for over a 1 1/2.

Yes, she is a bit scared to finally start making the changes she has thought about for so long.  I am guiding her and providing a design plan that she is comfortable with.  So, don’t put it off any longer, dive in or slowly put a foot in the water.  You may find out that if FEELS GOOD!

Guest Post-

Today I am being forced to put a pen, get a writing pad and write a nice little article to all my dear friends out there. You must be thinking who forced me to do so. Well, that’s a long answer you are asking for. It’s my home who has been screaming at me since a couple of days. It’s creaming out loud, ‘Please, My owner! My custodian! Look at me. Look closely as to what have you done to me throughout these passing years. Just imagine what I was when you moved in and now what a tragic death I am dying”. After hours of recollection I have reached the conclusion that yeah, what the hell have I done to my home. Every nook and corner of this place is crying, asking for attention, and demanding nothing but a make-over and some frequent touch-ups here and there.

Everyone likes change, nobody likes living a stagnant life. Same goes for the interior decor of your living place. A neat, trendy interior design is a must to compliment the good architecture of a building. This involves everything from the selection of color combos to the choice of furniture, from wall hangings to floor mats and carpeting. Also a special attention must be paid while deciding on the interior of the room keeping under consideration as to what the room would be used for. Bedrooms should always have cool light colors with comfortable and cozy fixtures. Living room should have a vibrant and energetic feel to it. These tips are not universal but can be molded per your own taste and requirements.

What is universal and vital is that Interior of your villa or apartment affects your life immeasurably so having a poorly designed home can be such a blow to your lifestyle which can’t be cured or reverted at any cost. Even if a place was given a brilliant interior at the start and was not maintained with changing seasons and passing time, it is of no use. This is something which needs recurrent consideration and refreshment. So be always vigilant about the interior design of your homes that whether they are prim and proper or not. If you feel that things are out-of-place and you are having concerns regarding your living place its time you get its interior modified and get a fresh one.

About Author

Gabriel Ryan is an artist who is passionate about http://www.juliasantengallery.com/

Check out his website www.juliasantengallery.com where you will also find http://www.juliasantengallery.com/go/vintage_posters.html”

Fun Accessories for Your Home or Office

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When looking for accessories, think in terms of variable heights, textures and colors for the most interesting and unique out come.  The decorating rules of grouping items in odd numbers such as 3 and 5 almost always will work best.

Just out accessory shopping for a client’s home and I wanted to share some of the fun items I found for her. I am a big fan of organic-modern objet like this piece composed of manzanita branches.


(Eclectic Home-Scottsdale,AZ)

This collection of vases also caught my eye

One of my favorite sources for unique accessories is Global Views.  Here is a sample of what they offer-

 

Re-Set and Re-Assess Your Interior Spaces

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A lot of us have been trained to think of  the New Year, January 1st that is, to think about what we would like to be different in our lives in the coming year.  Not to make light of these sometimes important, deeply thought out resolutions, but I am going to suggest that you also use this time of year to think about how you might like to change your interior spaces to be more pleasing, and perhaps more functional.

This is the time to develop the Design Plan. [Read more…]