Renovating your home doesn’t mean painting all the walls in (h)white, adopting a minimalistic style with a handful of pieces of furniture in black, and hiring a suspiciously effeminate Danish avant-garde architect to discuss the draperies with.
In fact, treading down a path exactly opposite to this one can yield incredible results, as well.
Indeed, some recycled boards for your new parquet, a good ole wood burner o’ yore for warmth in the winter, and a clique of your buddies to help you out fit it all can really be a recipe for a complete success! (…. Ooor, it can fail miserably and you’ll lose a bunch of money.)
It can go either way, it’s all up to you – that’s the magic of it!
Another interesting thing about renovating is that it gives you some room to experiment with your house assets. If you need to repaint your walls, for example, who says they need to be white again?
Make them bright purple to bring in more color to the whole room, use a checkered pattern if yer Scottish (forsooth!), or make it gray and then write a bunch of libertarian slogans in German if you think reunification was a mistake, you own a Trabant, and happen to be suffering from a bout of Ostalgie.
In this article, we’re going to talk about how you can NOT only renovate your house – but do so sustainably and for a relatively low cost, as well.
Right then folks, here’s the deal.
4 Ways to Renovate Sustainably
1) Reclaimed Wooden Floor
Wood is one of those materials that can be reused as flooring.
Not only that – wood will, in many cases, look even better after it’s ‘served it’s fair time’ as a floor surface. So, in order to make the best of your budget and if wood is your material of choice – using recycled wood instead of brand new planks can be a great solution for you.
2) Consider Fitting a Green Roof
Green roofs are becoming more and more popular these days.
In fact, there’s an entire district of buildings somewhere in the Netherlands where on top of every roof, there’s a rich patch of greenery that can do wonders to absorb moisture, provide fertile soil to the legumes and shrubbery you decide to plant inside it, as well as insulate your attic and thus entire house!
Of course, it goes without saying that these green roofs often look marvelous.
3) Install a Wood Burner
One of the best ways to keep warm during the cold winter months would be to get yourself a proper wood burner. And a ton of firewood, of course. (You might need more than just one ton, of course. It depends on the size of your household, really.)
Now, while wood burners may not be the most eco-friendly heating solution out there, what you have to understand is that even if you were to use only electricity for your heating, that electricity still comes from a power plant, which uses coal in most probability.
The important thing to take into consideration when it comes to wood stoves or any other forms of indoor fire-burning contraptions, is to have a proper system of anti-fire defense in place. Installing a fire duct like this one from ThorDuct (in case you haven’t got one already) can be a great way to ensure your wood-burning pursuits will be safe.
4) ‘Salvage’ Natural Lighting
If you’re rearranging your walls and windows as a part of your renovation process, you may want to make your redesign in a way that it allows plenty of natural light to seep through.
You see, natural light without a shadow of doubt the best source of light for us humans, so whenever you can substitute lightbulbs and LED lights with some sunshine, by all means go for it.
All things considered, whether it’s something as small as getting a wee wooden stove for your house, or a complete overhaul of your property, renovation doesn’t need to be expensive or tough to accomplish. Just follow your vision, try not to spend too much money, think about the future of this investment, and Bob’s your uncle!
