For the sake of the future of humanity on this planet, we all have to do our bit to move towards a greener and more sustainable way of life. There are plenty of ways that we can reduce our carbon footprints as individuals, from reducing our meat intake to car sharing or adding insulation to reduce the energy needed to heat our homes. Another think we can do is live as close as possible to a zero waste lifestyle.
What is a 'zero waste' lifestyle?
A zero waste lifestyle is a life lived in such a way that no waste is generated. No rubbish would be sent to landfill. No useful resource would go unused. In the modern world, living in such a way that you generate literally zero waste is extremely difficult. But we can all take steps to reduce the waste we produce and to dispose of the waste we do generate wisely.
How can we begin to reduce waste?
We can:
Grow our own food where possible and buy wholesale and/or unpackaged, from farmers.
Reduce the number of cleaning and beauty products that we bring into our homes.
Think twice before buying any new item and reduce our overall consumption.
Recycle packaging and other waste where possible.
Compost food waste at home.
Re-use old items and 'waste' within the home in a variety of different ways.
Prolong the lives of items we own through careful tending and repair.
All in all, we can think more carefully before things come into and leave our homes and take responsibility for the real cost of our purchases and of dealing with our rubbish.
How Can Love Restored Help?
Love Restored can help you to create a beautiful home filled with up-cycled items that may otherwise have ended up in landfill. The beautiful, bespoke pieces of up-cycled furniture in store could be the perfect pieces to fill your home without hurting the planet. They also each represent a piece of potential waste that was saved from the skip.
Perhaps though, you will not purchase one of the lovely pieces of furniture that have already been given a new lease of life and will instead choose to bring back to life an item of furniture that you already own. There are plenty of wonderful ways to give your furniture a second chance and reduce waste, many of which involve Annie Sloan's excellent collection of chalk paints. Love Restored can not only sell you to paints and other equipment you might need to restore love to your old and uncherished items but also runs workshops to help you learn the skills you need.
Whats your views on upcycling, do you try to live a more sustainable life? Share you photos of any upcycled projects you have done with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. If so share with us on our Facebook,Instagram, Twitter or Pinterest using #loverestored @love_restored
From stairs and doors to kitchen utensils, cleaning solutions and furniture, items that you may never think of as dangerous can pose a serious safety risk if they’re left around young children.
One of the most important aspects of taking care of children is ensuring they have a safe living environment. In the home, this means ensuring the spaces your children spend their time in are safe, healthy and free of hazards.
From small items that present a choking risk to sharp furniture corners, utensils or poisonous solutions, how many potentially dangerous items are there to be found in your home’s living room, kitchen or bedroom?
The answer might be higher than you think. Luckily, it’s possible to make your home safe and suitable for young children by implementing some simple child-safety ideas and techniques.
Would you like to make your living room a safe environment for children? Read on to discover seven easy ways to remove hazardous items from your living room and make it a child-proof space.
Start by viewing your room from a child’s perspective
Think you can see all of the potentially dangerous items in your room? Since you’re significantly taller than a toddler or young child, it’s often easy to miss items that sit close to the ground.
From discarded pens and pencils located under the sofa to sharp furniture corners that just can’t be seen from a normal adult’s height, many of the dangerous items in your living room are more easily seen from a child’s perspective.
Instead of searching your living room on your feet, try walking on your knees to see if you can locate hazards. As well as looking for dangerous items, check for sharp or pointed corners that your child could fall onto or scratch themselves on.
Soften sharp furniture corners with child-proof padding
Is your living room full of sharp corners? Certain pieces of furniture, such as coffee tables or television cabinets, often have sharp corners that are easy to cut yourself on accidentally.
Since young children are so much closer to the ground than adults, scratching on a coffee table corner doesn’t mean a sore shin – it can often mean hitting their head and becoming seriously injured.
Make your living room furniture child-proof and safe by softening any sharp corners that could lead to injuries. You can either purchase special corner padding or simply tape padding to the corners of your furniture to turn sharp corners into soft ones.
It's not that hard to child-proof ur house. Can buy foam corner guards for furniture with sharp edges. Cheap only #childsafety
Remove (or lock away) sharp utensils and poisonous solutions
Do you have an open plan living room and kitchen? If your kitchen is a part of your living room, it’s extremely important that you lock away sharp utensils and kitchen solutions that could injure your children.
From steak knives to bottle openers, potato peelers and other seemingly innocent kitchen utensils, many of the items found in a typical kitchen can cause injuries in the wrong person’s hands.
Secure your kitchen utensils using a child-proof drawer lock, or move all of them into a drawer that’s out of reach of your children. It’s also important to lock away any poisonous solvents such as kitchen cleaner or dishwasher detergent.
Keep small items that present a choking hazard out of reach
Small items like kitchen coasters and batteries may not seem dangerous, but they’re a serious choking hazard for young kids. From USB cables to pens, lots of items that seem harmless can potentially become lodged in a young child’s windpipe.
Choking is a serious risk for young children, since small and bright items can appear to be very appealing for toddlers and attract lots of attention. Make sure you keep all of your living room’s small items locked away to remove any choking hazards.
As well as removing small items that are a choking hazard, it’s important to remove cables such as smartphone chargers. Take an inventory of your living room and put any potentially hazardous small items in locked storage, or in a separate room.
Make sure photo frames can’t be knocked and broken
Photo frames may not seem like risky items, but they can present a serious risk to a child’s safety if they break open.
If you store photo frames on top of tables or on the wall, a single bump could be all it takes to fill your living room with broken glass. If you have hanging picture frames in your living room, make sure they’re fixed to the wall firmly and unlikely to fall and break. If you store photo frames on top of a table or cabinet, consider moving them to another room where they aren’t a risk.
It may seem overly cautious to remove items like photo and picture frames, but it’s not uncommon for children to bump into side tables or cabinets and cause them to fall down and break on tiled or wooden flooring.
Double check that power outlets are covered or hidden
Does your living room have exposed power outlets? If you have unused outlets in your living room, it’s important that you cover them to prevent them from turning into a safety risk for young children.
You can cover electrical outlets using childproof caps – thin plastic caps that cover the electrical outlet and prevent children from accidentally inserting forks or other objects.
It’s also important to secure loose electrical cables and multi-outlets. Use zip ties to secure the electrical cables from your TV and entertainment consoles to the cabinet ensure children can’t pull them loose.
Today, I'll mostly be fixing stair gates, making safe plug sockets, and generally child-proof our house against an ever mobile daughter.
Arrange furniture to make climbing onto surfaces impossible
Is your couch within jumping distance of your kitchen counter? Is your armchair a short distance from the bookshelf? If your living room furniture is close to cabinets, tables and other surfaces, it might be a good idea to move it further away.
Young children can easily climb onto armchairs and sofas, using them as a path to a different surface. By climbing from one piece of furniture to another, young kids can access out-of-reach areas and come into contact with potentially hazardous items.
From your child’s perspective, look for furniture that could be used to climb onto a higher surface. Then, rearrange your furniture so that it isn’t possible for your kids to climb onto the kitchen counter, dining table or other dangerous areas.
Hi all, here's something we found that we thought you might like.
Rapid technological change isn’t just confined to what we listen to our music on, or which smartphone update is the latest ‘can’t live without’ device. The world of furniture design is as much a part of the technological revolution as any other industry. Leading furniture manufacturers now invest large amounts of research-effort into creating materials that not only look fantastic but outperform anything that has gone before. The latest designs to benefit from this are dining tables with amazing, near indestructible table tops (with apologies to all manufacturers of coasters and heat resistant tablecloths here…).
Our Italian brand Bontempi Cassa is one of a number of leading manufacturers to have launched their AW2015 dining tables featuring SuperCeramica, a material which not only looks elegant and stylish but that creates a virtually indestructible table top surface.
Cruz dining table
SuperCeramica is a ceramic based material combined with glass. Its credentials are as long as your arm and include: oil resistant; acid/chemical resistant; scratch proof; heat proof; fire resistant; non-toxic; eco friendly; recyclable. What’s not to like?
Shown above, the Cruz dining table (in ‘sand’ SuperCeramica) is also a versatile table, available in five different sizes, with the small version one of our smallest extending tables at just 120cm long x 80cm wide, and the largest version 102cm wide and 290cm long when extended. We love it so much we’ve now got one in our Kings Road showroom – which many of our clients’ children regularly put through its paces. It’s always won!
Dublino dining table
The Dublino table is also offered in SuperCeramica (seen above in anthracite SuperCeramica) along with melamine, matt lacquered wood and velvet anti-scratch glass, while the strong metal frame can be lacquered in a range of colours or in chrome.
Glass table tops have been a feature of dining tables for a while. However, the new matt, anti-scratch-proof glass, or velvet glass, is another great advance in surface design. Using a technical process known as ‘dynamic corrosion’, the glass is treated by using special acids that create bevelled edges of the micro-crests within the structure. We love the science bits (the technical info reads a bit how we imagine the initial treatment for Interstellar must have looked!)
Genio dining table
The Genio table (above) is seen here in anti-scratch white glass. Again, superb credentials: abrasion resistant; stain resistant; non-absorbent (liquids slide away); easy to clean (important with glass); warm to the touch; wide choice of colours. Three different extending sizes to choose from.
So, sit back and enjoy your table, your family and friends, the meal. No more fretting about burn marks, water stains, scratches… just let the science be with you!
Hi all, here's something we found that we thought you might like.
The living room is often the heart of the home. It’s the place where the family relax together and discuss the day, and also where parties occur & guests congregate. As well as being a place to generally chill out.
Because so many people relax in the living space of a home, there’s often pressure for it to be looking its best but making the room look its best can raise some questions.
In this blog post we’ve listed a five things to consider when decorating your living room.
Usage of the Room
When it comes to decorating and designing your living room, you need to really crack down on how you’ll use it. There a few question to ask yourself to help you get the most out of the main room in your house, including:
What is the purpose of the room?
This is probably the most important question to ask yourself. What is the main purpose of the room? What happens there? Why do people go there?
The most common purposes of a living room are to entertain guests, to relax and to watch TV. This is a huge factor to consider when decorating your living room as you can tailor the area to suit your needs.
How often will you use the room?
Again, the amount of time you spend in the living room a hugely important point to consider before you decorate it.
The usage of a room determines everything from the furniture you can buy down to the colour scheme. If the space is used frequently, you need durable pieces to decorate it with, such as a good quality sofa. If the space is only used a handful of times, you can get away with more vibrant colour schemes to bring the area to life.
Colour Schemes and Themes
Arguably one of the most controversial aspects of a room is the colour scheme and theme. The colour scheme should have 1 or 2 main colours with variation in the details. For example, you can decide on a black and white scheme with grey items in areas like tables, shelving and accessories. The theme of a room is more of a style and therefore is not completely necessary. Some of the most popular themes are patterned, minimalistic and modern styles. Both the colour scheme and themes are completely down to your individual taste and is also a way to bring the room to life. Go as crazy or as minimal as you like – you’ll be the one sitting in it!
Do your research!
If you’re completely oblivious to what’s on-trend right now, get on the internet and do some research – it could end up saving you re-decorating again in a few months’ time. Sites like Pinterest, Design Seeds and ColourLovers are excellent resources for choosing a complimentary colour scheme in your home.
Does the room get natural lighting?
the natural lighting in our living room is everything
Another important question to ask yourself is about natural lighting. This is the lighting that comes into the room from natural sunlight, usually through windows and roofs.
A way to test the natural lighting of a room is to see what the room looks like with no artificial lighting coming from lights, lamps or TVs. If the room looks light already, you have some freedom when decorating. If the room looks dark, you may need to alter your ideas to brighten it up.
The colour scheme of a room plays the biggest part of making the room look brighter. Try to use light colours to make the room look more airy, and add small lighting features throughout the room to provide some artificial lighting.
Where is the focal point?
Every room throughout the house needs a focal point. It’s the place where everyone will look when they visit the room and you can tailor the furnishings around the space.
Typically, the focal point of a living room is a TV or fireplace. Try to put extra effort into these areas; taking into mind you don’t want any distractions around the space to persuade the eyes to wonder.
Don't forget the details!
The thing most people tend to forget about when decorating their living rooms is the detail. Things like wire management, door handles and light switches tend to go un-noticed when you decorate an area, but a room can look un-finished without the details done.
The last thing you want when a room is fully-decorated is to have messy wires everywhere, then needing to pull out your gorgeous creation to hide them. Try and find a way to manage your cables without making it too obvious in the room; hiding them if possible.
If you’re looking to decorate your living room, we are sure these tips will help you get the most out of the area. Get online, do your research and paint away – we’d love to see the results!
Hi all, here's something we found that we thought you might like.
There’s no surprise that we’re changing our furniture more regularly than consumer advice recommends - whether it’s down to changing the design of your home or just a general lifestyle change being to blame.
Washing machines, fridges and dining tables are some of the most popular items to replace earlier than the recommended life span, but it’s not only the kitchen furniture that you are splashing out on! Sofas, bedframes and mattresses are often swapped earlier than they need to be, with the average sofa being replaced 1.38 years too early.
There could be many reasons why we change our appliances and home furnishings too frequently. Maybe the colour of your sofa is perfectly OK and shows no signs of breaking, but it doesn’t fit in with your latest colour scheme; a great excuse to buy a brand new piece of furniture!
Any excuse for treating ourselves, eh?
Check out our infographic below which shows the difference between the recommended lifespan of a piece of furniture, and the actual length of time you keep it for:
