Design and Building Tips For a Sustainable Kitchen

The whole sustainable movement is becoming more and more popular as time goes on. If you’re planning to do a kitchen remodel or update, you are most likely thinking about doing something that is eco-friendly.

When you are taking an eco-friendly route when doing things to your kitchen, it means that you are making decisions that best fit your lifestyle, wants and budget.

Some eco-friendly products might be more energy-efficient and be more environmentally friendly, but most of them cost a bit more than standard things would.

Choose Sustainable Countertops

Products like quartz and Corian are considered more sustainable than the usual granite. All because their production leaves less of an impact than the mining required to get granite.

When you think about their maintenance-free qualities, together with the fact that they don’t need toxic adhesives and will last a lifetime without it chipping.

Refinish The Cabinets

The cheapest way to have custom looking cabinets is by simply refinishing them. It’s super simple to do. You just need to sand down the old paint and paint the cabinets in a fresh coat of paint. After a coat or two of paint, you can put on a glossy finish to make the wood nice and healthy-looking.

Get Energy Efficient Lighting

Nowadays most households are using energy-efficient lighting. Using it will not only lower your electricity bills, but they also emanate less CO2 radiation and greenhouse gases, which makes it a no brainer when choosing lighting within your kitchen.

Things like LED bulbs are super-efficient, and they are more affordable than they used to be a couple of years ago.

They have a great lifespan of over 10,000 hours opposed to incandescent bulbs, therefore, LED bulbs are definitely worth the investment. There are so many options that you can use to spice up your kitchen and give it a vibe that you want.

Use Repurposed Items

Buying vintage or used items and repurposing them has become so popular in the last couple of years, which is great because it is eco-friendly. Repurposing old items lessens the amount of waste that is tossed into oceans and lowers the need for producing new toxic materials.

But when it comes to appliances, there is no need to buy fancy eco-friendly appliances. You can simply buy used or fix your broken appliances by buying spare parts and fixing it.

There are many Smeg spare parts, and parts for many more manufacturers. This is a great way to be sustainable if you don’t have that much money to spend on new efficient appliances.

Improve Air Quality

When you are doing kitchen renovations, you are potentially introducing some pretty bad chemicals into your house. The materials that you choose will have a large impact on how many toxic, harmful substances you bring into your home.

It’s very important to be aware that there are many safer and healthier choices when you are selecting paints and varnishes.

And the most important, the off-gassing that is released from volatile organic chemicals, also known as VOC pollutes both outdoor and indoor air quality. In order to have a real, eco-friendly kitchen you will choose paints that are low or zero-VOC, and you will minimize chemicals.

Pay special attention when picking outboard and wood products that you will use in the construction of your cabinets. Many can contain high levels of formaldehyde but wood like plywood contain much less. Ask the hardware specialist what are the chemicals contained in the wood you purchased.

Use Plastic Free Storage and Utensils

When you are replacing plastic that is in your kitchen, you are helping the environment enormously while creating a modern looking kitchen. Plastic pollution is one of the biggest threats to the environment.

Go around your kitchen and look at the number of plastic bits and bobs, storage items and utensils you have laying around. to cut down on plastic use, take a look and find some alternatives you can use and make your kitchen as eco-friendly as you possibly can.

Choose Eco-friendly Flooring

If you want to wear and tear-proof yet beautiful flooring that is made from natural and sustainable resources, consider choosing linoleum and cork flooring.

Both of them are very durable yet soft and comfortable to walk on. You can put down linoleum and cork flooring by yourself and choose from a wide range of colours and patterns to fit in with your kitchen.

Another eco-friendly option is concrete and, despite being tough to stand on for long periods of time, but it is more expensive than linoleum and cork.

Creating a sustainable kitchen isn’t about doing some quick fixes to make your kitchen look new. It is supposed to be about making an environment that is nice to be in and yet be eco-friendly.