Gecco's Blog

Christmas is a huge discussion point in many ‘green’ households, who frown upon the super-consumerist element to the modern day festive season. I could not begin to comment on all aspects of the festive season, but here are a few of my eco tips to help reduce the seasonal footprint of your gifts this year.

An Eco Friendly Christmas

Presents

Gift an Experience

Clearly, we can all stop and take stock of the gifts we chose to buy our loved ones and the amount of packaging involved in each of them. We can look at gifting an experience, such as an hours pony trek for a beloved niece, or the wonderful gift of time, such as a weekend digging over Granddad’s allotment.

Make it Yourself

This might take a little time and skill, but where there is a will there is usually a way and handmade gifts mean so much more. A couple of years ago, I came into a wide range of discontinued hanging fabric samples and with the help of some beautiful beads and my trusty sewing machine, turned them into stunning table runners for the women in my life.

Good friends of ours have taken a different tack this year and have each chosen one person in the family to make a gift for. Even the children are getting involved with things like home-made chocolates, sewing a cushion and a collage of photos of the grandchildren for Grandma. There are countless ideas once you start to think about it. One piece of advice however, is to start early as many things take more than a couple of weeks to make!

Buy Used

Have you ever spent time wandering through second hand stores and markets? There is a treasure trove of used goods waiting to be found and given a new home. Second-hand books, picture frames, crockery and glassware all make fabulous gifts full of character and history. Some people are even making a business out of reselling the gorgeous vintage jewellery that can often be found in your local antique store. Half the fun is looking!

Buy Nothing - Check out this link to the best tip on what to buy someone who has everything!

Wrapping it Up

This is another bug bear of mine. At the end of the unwrapping on Christmas morning when the kids have moved on to playing with their new gear, we are left with a mountain (or bin liner) full of wrapping paper, bows and cards and bringing it to the bin outside makes me want to weep. Here are a few ideas to help reduce the mountain.

All wrapped up - naturally!

Recycled Paper

For the past few years I have insisted on using paper that is 100% recycled, but good recycled paper is hard to find. The last few years I have bought it from the NSPCC card catalogue which has a few well designed rolls that are not too expensive and this year I was thrilled to find some in my local Oxfam shop with great patterns on!

Brown Parcel Paper

I love the look of recycled brown paper and often use it for wrapping. It is especially good  for adding some personal touches like stamps or kids drawings to the outside of a gift.

The added Touch

You can get quite creative with ribbons and bows at Christmas time and I love using Raffia which comes in lots of different colours. I also love the look of a sprig of holly or evergreen tied to a parcel wrapped in brown paper. It is simple yet so effective.

Gift Cards

I know that fewer and fewer people are sending Christmas cards these days and though I lament their passing as a means of wishing good cheer, I do not appreciate throwing a mound of cards into the recycling box after a week or two on the mantelpiece. We have been taking our Christmas cards each year and cutting them into funky gift tags for use the following year. Once again, the paper has a second life before it goes to be recycled and they can look great!

The Christmas Message Letter

Being married to an American usually means a series of Christmas Messages from friends and family in the US, in the form of an electronic message with photos attached. Some people in the UK dislike these letters as they appear to be full of self praise, but they are a great ‘green’ way to send Christmas greetings and what goes into them is entirely up to you. I know that I love to receive news from friends and take a look at some photos of their past year. We live in a digital age and I guess the Christmas letter is the digital way of saying ‘Merry Christmas to one and All’

That just leaves me with the task of wishing all our customers a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and healthy New Year! We hope to hear from you all soon.

Welcome to Eco Home

Gecco Interiors was recently invited to take part in an exciting and interesting exhibit at the wonderful Geffrye Musuem  in London called Eco Home. The Geffyre Museum showcases interior design throughout the ages and they wanted to take the opportunity to show how climate change will and is affecting our decisions for the inside of our homes.

‘This special exhibition at the Geffrye Museum will address widespread and increasing interest in the way that climate change and the state of the planet affects our homes and the way we use, decorate and inhabit them. Visitors to the exhibition will go away better informed about some of the issues around design and consumption which affect home life. At the same time they will be able to see that eco-friendly can also be chic and that aspiration towards good taste and design can go hand-in-hand with trying to help conserve the planet’s resources’.

(Source :www.geffrye-museum.org.uk)

The exhibit was designed by Eco Designer Oliver Heath who officially opened the display on Tuesday evening and I went along to see it. The exhibit takes the visitor through various issues from our use of energy and water in the home, through the innovation of new sustainable materials that are being developed, into cutting edge product design and finally, products that are already available to create a beautiful home in a sustainable way.

Organic Fabrics from Gecco Interiors

Gecco Interiors were proud to supply the organic fabrics and ceramic tiles with recycled content for the materials section of the exhibit courtesy of our innovative suppliers (Camira textiles, Malabar, O Eco Textiles and Johnson Tiles).

The exhibit runs from Tuesday 13 October 2009 to Sunday 7^th February 2010 and is well worth a visit!

New Chairs from new materials

A selection of sustainable fabrics

Gorgeous eco friendly products for the home

How green is your sofa?

There is a great deal of talk about ‘greening’ your home on the outside to reduce energy costs and heat loss (and rightly so) but what about the inside of the property? Can we improve the carbon footprint environmental friendliness of our home interiors?

There are various factors to consider when looking at our home décor: the carbon footprint of each individual item in a room, such as the sofa manufacture, or the chemical content of the paint on the walls; the sustainability of the resources used for each product; and the health issues surrounding the products for your family e.g. off-gassing of paints and varnishes or MDF boards?  Let’s face it, unless we were lucky enough to start from scratch within the last few years, we all have houses that are pretty toxic and not very eco-friendly.

So how do you go about ‘greening’ the interior or your property? First of all, let me say what you shouldn’t do – do not jump in with both feet and scrap everything you possess in order to replace it with a ‘greener’ version. Our resources are scarce and the landfill sites are full. Take it one room at a time and take stock of what you have. Can some of the items be revamped and used in the new room scheme? Can they be passed on to a friend or needy student setting up their first home? Your local freecycle group will be grateful for pretty much any item – there is always somebody who can make use of something you no longer need.

Greening your rooms: Step by Step

Now that we have that straight, here is what to do next. Take it a room at a time and think carefully about the following aspects of the room:

• Lighting – Can the wattage of the lights in use be reduced? Do you need to introduce new light fittings with greater efficiency? How about building in some new technology such as timers, dimmers or sensor switches. LED designs are improving all the time and can look stunning in any room scheme (check out our design collection)

• Flooring – Don’t scrap the old carpet if it still works for the room scheme you want. If it doesn’t work or is too worn, then look at the many different options out there such as bare or naturally stained/painted floorboards with rugs made of sustainable materials like wool, felt or sisal. The new style cork flooring or revamped rubber flooring or Marmoleum can look great in the right room and there are several companies out there launching 100% broadloom wool carpets that have been left undyed. Check out your local carpet retailer for more information.

• Wallcoverings – this aspect is becoming much easier with the growth of the natural paint market. Beware of some paint suppliers claiming to be ‘green’ because of low VOC content – they should have ‘0’ VOC content and if they don’t there are many out there who do! (check out our offerning of AURO paints). Wallpapers are now being produced using paper from managed forests and non toxic dyes and we have even discovered gorgeous ceramic tiles with 30-40% recycled content!

• Window Dressing – A great tip from Oliver Heath in his Urban Eco Chic book, is to try to bring as much light into a room as possible to reduce the amount of time we are reliant on electric lighting. Painting the windowframe and sill white can help reflect light into the room as well as designing curtains or blinds that sit back from the windows and do not cover too much of the glass. Take a look at our wide range of organic curtain and blind fabrics for inspiration. We can make any of them up into curtains and blinds according to your measurements.

• Furniture – Finally, take a good look at your furniture. Can any of it work in the new scheme? Could a beloved chair of sofa be re-covered in a new organic upholstery fabric? Look at repainting a bookshelf or coffee table to give it a fresh look. Many second hand shops carry sets of stylish dining chairs which can look fabulous with a new seat cushion. Eco Style means that it does not have to match and it is often much more fun to have a collection of stylish yet slightly mismatched pieces in one room rather than everything looking uniform. Have fun creating your own style! If you do decide to buy new, take the time to source furniture made in an environmentally sensitive way using timber from FSC managed forests and as locally made as possible.

• Kitchens & Bathrooms – these are the rooms that can cost the most in any house, but they are often the most wasteful when it comes to energy or water usage. We are lucky these days that companies are innovating all the time and new technology has brought about energy efficient appliances, fixtures and fittings for both of these rooms. Many leading bathroom suppliers now carry low flow taps or showers and eco bathtubs that take much less water than traditional tubs. Rubber flooring, Marmoleum and recycled ceramic tiles come into their own in these room schemes and there are now some truly stunning worktops made from recycled materials such as wine bottles or shells! (check out Glass ECO)

Now that's green living!

For any other information or tips please do not hesitate to contact me at any time and I will love helping you to solve your eco design dilemma! You can reach me at angie@geccointeriors.co.uk