Natural Cork Flooring In Your Kitchen

Using natural cork flooring in your kitchen is an interesting choice if you want to go with a sustainable flooring material.  Cork floor tiles are very interesting and have an elegant look much different from other types of wood flooring because they have a burled appearance.  This can give your kitchen a unique look that you just don’t find in every home!

While you may not have heard too much about cork flooring it’s actually not that new.  In fact there are buildings right here in the US which are over a hundred years old and still have the original cork floor’s.  So, you can see, cork will hold up pretty good in your kitchen is a flooring material.

One great thing about natural cork flooring is that not only is it durable it’s also a bit cushiony.  When compared to traditional hardwood floors or sustainable bamboo flooring, cork will be a little bit easier on the feet because of its resilient nature.

Cork floor tiles typically come in 12 x 12 or 12 x 24 inch sizes.  You can actually get planks that are  1′ x 3′  if you want to have a floating cork floor.  The planks float on your subfloor and give it more of a hardwood floor appearance where as the tiles will give it more of a parquet flooring appear.

Now, when it comes to flooring for your kitchen, cork is probably one of the better choices because the kitchen is a very busy room.  Therefore, there’s a lot of traffic and a lot of noise.  As mentioned before, cork flooring will provide a bit of a cushion for your feet, it also will absorb the noise better and have less of that “echo” sound that bamboo or hardwood would have.

Natural cork flooring is also an interesting choice because of the way it is made.  Sustainable cork is grown in forests which use sustainable methods.  The cork is actually bark that is harvested from mature trees.  Once the bark is removed, more bark actually grows back!  So whether you choose a floating cork floor or cork floor tiles, you can rest assured that no trees were harmed during the manufacture of your kitchen floor!

Green Interior Design For The Kitchen

In addition to eco-friendly appliances, sustainable flooring and nonpolluting cabinets there are some other green interior design things that you should consider for your kitchen.  While it’s great to be sure that you are putting in eco-friendly materials for your major elements, what about some of the other things that you add to the room to embellish your decor?

One thing you might consider for your table is bamboo.  Now, I mean actual bamboo not the fake stuff that looks like bamboo – you want to choose furniture that is made from bamboo which is grown on eco-friendly plantation’s.  Bamboo grows pretty quickly so harvesting it to make furniture has a minimal impact on the environment because new bamboo can be planted to quickly replace what has been cut down.  Not only that, but it is durable, water resistant and anti-microbial.

If you’re using fabric for seating as well as your window treatments you want to consider organic cotton.  These days you can get it in plenty of gorgeous colors, prints and designs so you shouldn’t have to sacrifice style for your green kitchen design.

Green interior design doesn’t just refer to using sustainable materials that are newly made, it also has a lot to do with recycling so that older materials get reused instead of ending up in the landfill.  This is where a keen eye and a love for antiques will come in handy.  No matter what theme or color scheme you have going in your kitchen interior design, buying antiques will add ambiance and charm to your decor.

Try scouring flea markets and  antique shops for those perfect finds.  Also, don’t discount consignment stores – you can find them in almost every town these days and you will often find really great items that are in like new condition for a fraction of the price that you would pay in the retail store.  This is a great place to look for those knickknacks as well as furniture for your kitchen design.

Green interior design can mean a lot of things when you’re decorating your kitchen.  First and foremost try to buy items that are made from sustainable materials.  Also you want to focus on items that are non-toxic and won’t pollute the environment as well as ones that are manufactured with environmentally friendly methods.  Finally, reusing old items is a great way to keep your kitchen design green as well as give it unique appeal.

Bamboo Flooring – Kitchen Floors

If you are looking to use eco-friendly bamboo flooring, kitchen floors are just perfect! Bamboo flooring is beautiful, trendy and holds up well to daily use so having it in your kitchen can be a great way to keep your kitchen design green.

Bamboo is actually a grass and it grows very quickly so it is a renewable resource. Unlike an Oak tree which may take 120 years to grow big enough to produce boards for your kitchen floor, bamboo grows to maturity in three to seven years. It’s not harmed by harvesting and self propagates via rhizomes which spread underground.

You can get bamboo flooring for your kitchen in a variety of colors. It can be left in a lighter natural color or carbonized to achieve the dark amber color. This carbonizing actually reduces the hardness of the floor so you might want to think twice about this for kitchen flooring. However if you want a bit of color on your floor it can be dyed to achieve a different tone. Bear in mind, however that the graining of bamboo is not like other woods so it won’t take a stain like pine or oak. If you are considering staining your bamboo floor, you’d best do some experimenting on scrap pieces first.

Bamboo Flooring Kitchen Installation

Installing bamboo flooring is the same as installing other kinds of wood flooring. It comes from the factory prefinished and can be glued or nailed but be advised that most of it uses a urea formaldehyde adhesive during the lamination process. You urea formaldehyde is known to be harmful to indoor air quality, but all flooring uses it and bamboo uses a smaller amount.

Just like other types of wood, you’ll want to leave your bamboo inside the kitchen for a few days to let it acclimate to the temperature and humidity before you install it.

Most bamboo manufacturers tout that it is harder than your typical hardwood flooring, however the hardness of your bamboo depends on the species of grass that is used as well as the aged it is when it is harvested. Most of the bamboo that we get in the US comes from the Hunan Province in southern China and is actually harvested from natural plantation groves.

If you are considering bamboo flooring for your kitchen, you want to be sure that it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council so as to be sure that the bamboo is grown responsibly, without the use of pesticides and meets the criteria for sustainability.

Green And Gorgeous Recycled Countertops

While the word recycled countertops might conjure up images of boring and utilitarian counter spaces, today’s green counters made from recycled glass are anything but. Coming in a wide range of color palettes, these countertops with embedded shards of colorful and beautiful glass give a unique look to any kitchen.

The pieces of glass, once having productive lives as stemware, traffic lights, soda bottles, windshields and the like, have been repurposed to live a second life right inside your countertop. The result is a beautiful mosaic which is functional and, of course, good for the environment.

These recycled countertops are made by a few manufacture others – Vetrazzo and IceStone are two of the most prominent ones. They are made by embedding glass and concrete and can actually be used on walls and floors in addition to counters. There’s a huge array of color choices because the concrete can be colored to suit any palate. Some countertops have only one color glass while others focus on all different colors for unique and colorful display.

You can get counters that have large chunks of glass for a very organic and funky look or ones with smaller chunks that seem a bit more traditional.

If you’re picturing an ugly concrete block with broken shards of glass sticking out, this is not what they look like. They are beautiful and polished with pieces of glass embedded at different layers for three-dimensional look. Over at Vetrazzo the color samples included a subtle clear embedded in white, beautiful cobalt blue, green, brown’s and a beautiful mixture of all different colors in a white background.

The interesting thing about these recycled countertops is that each one is different. The glass which comes from recycling plants is broken up into different sized shards and, much like snowflakes, no two are alike. So if you want a countertop that is unique, interesting and, of course, green you might want to check out some of these recycled glass counter tops – you can find them on the web and specialty showrooms in your town.

Green Kitchen Cabinets

Redecorating your kitchen is always an exciting undertaking especially since most families spend the majority of their time in the kitchen. When it comes to kitchen cabinetry, redecorating would not be the same without considering changing the color, the form, and the design of the cabinets. Usually people prefer popular cabinet designs, from the antique style of cabinets to the modernity and sleekness of today’s cabinet designs. But somewhere out there a new style has stepped forward and brings not only attractive designs and quality storage but a chance to help improve the environment as well. These are known as green kitchen cabinets and are now becoming popular in many kitchens all over the country.

When you hear the word “green” in relation to households and kitchens, it basically means the use of natural resources when constructing or remodeling your kitchen or any part of the house in order to become environment-friendly. The unhealthy chemicals that are usually emitted by the materials of normal kitchen cabinets, for example, can cause damage to the environment when we least expect it. The term green kitchen cabinets not only pertains to the material which is used to construct it but also on the way it is used in the home. You can get kitchen cabinets that use modules instead of the built-in designs to be able to dismantle them easier for future use. They also give you the freedom to select whatever piece you want that would go well with your kitchen, giving you more options for redecoration.

The disadvantage found in these special kitchen cabinets may be in the pricing since not all manufacturers are using FSC-certified hardwood or materials that contain formaldehyde-free substrates, which can pollute the environment. These kinds of materials are checked and certified, usually by an independent third party environment organization, in order to indicate and inform consumers that the materials being used are environment-friendly.

Because the concept of green kitchen cabinets is still being explored, the usual kitchen cabinets you will find in stores still use harmful wood materials like plywood or pressboard, which are glued by glue that contains formaldehyde, which of course emits toxic fumes into the air. But since companies are slowly considering the “green” trend in home decoration, there are still lots more that you can do and use to make your kitchen a happy and environmentally friendly place.

Going “green” does not necessarily mean you have to do a complete overhaul of your kitchen or home because you can maximize whatever resources you have to make your home an environmentally safe place to live in. Kitchen cabinets are just one of the many things you can improve in the kitchen that will make a great difference to the environment.

Green Wood Flooring

The green design has become a popular concept for homeowners, almost as popular as the concept of hybrid cars. People, particularly architects, interior designers, and all those who are concerned with the interior design are now opening their doors to green or environment-friendly alternatives to the traditional materials being used which actually emit a lot of harmful fumes or chemicals into the air. The concept of “green” has inspired the creation of green wood flooring, for example, in which many are now opting for to replace the old wood flooring used in their homes. Since wood flooring can be qualified as “green” construction materials in the home, the wood has to meet certain criteria and is categorized under reclaimed wood, fast-growing, domestic hardwood, or certified sustainable wood. More information on each category will be discussed in the later portions of this article.

Green wood flooring comes in many forms and types. By knowing what each category specializes in, you can choose which kind of green wood to use in your kitchen design.

Reclaimed Wood

This type of wood flooring can be found in various places like barns, buildings, warehouses, and vintage houses. This flooring can be reused and recycled since it looks better the older it gets and is typically of the best quality. What’s more, you can give your home that earthy antique ambiance since this type of wood usually comes with marks of nail holes and other surface scars that have lasted all throughout the years.

Bamboo Wood/Flooring

What makes bamboo an ideal choice for green wood flooring is its ability to renew itself rapidly. A lot of professional architects and interior designers love using bamboo because of its durability and its ability to tolerate humidity. Bamboo flooring is usually made from strong and durable bamboo stalks and looks beautiful as a flooring. It makes a great alternative to the traditional wood floors of pine or oak and lends a modern air to the home.

Domestic and Certified Sustainable Hardwood

This type of wood falls directly under the green design criteria since green flooring should be derived from a domestic source, using less resources and energy to harvest and transport to factory. You will know if the material is domestic or sustainable when it is taken from an FSC or Forest Stewardship Council-certified forest. By buying this type of flooring, you are also supporting the goals of the FSC, which is a non-profit organization that provides accreditation for foresting agencies that aim maintain the growth and care of the health of a certain forest.

In conclusion, you are assured of buying environment-friendly materials for your green wood flooring when you see the certification from the FSC, letting you know that you are buying domestic wood materials that are guaranteed to be a great “green choice”.

Green Countertops

Home remodeling and decoration is always a fun experience and who doesn’t love to ive their home an entirely new look. This can also be an opportunity for you to start becoming eco-friendly with regards to your home. Let us focus on countertops. Choosing a good countertop may be based on the appearance, the form, the quality, and the materials used, but what would you say if there is already a type of countertop that is environmentally safe and friendly?

Though the concept is still being explored, the idea of having green countertops, green appliances, green wood flooring, and all other parts of the house turning green woudl be a great relief to Mother Earth. As we all know, normal construction materials usually contain substances or chemicals that can endanger the health, the state of your home and the overall status of the environment. As a way of improving the use of household materials, “green” materials are now used as alternatives and can actually save you a lot of money on resources. What you can expect from these green items is that they are made from natural resources and are domestically harvested in order to cut down on energy consumption and the amount of time it takes to transport the materials to the factory. This is where your green wood flooring, cabinets, and countertops are manufactured and distributed to the public to promote awareness and to practice the use of green items in the home.

There are different materials used to make green countertops, which you might be interested in if you are working on remodeling your kitchen. There are many kinds of materials you can use for kitchen countertops, but listed below are some of the “green” materials :

• Countertops made out of granite are known to be one of the most expensive and attractive additions to the kitchen. It brings out the beauty and elegance of even the simplest kitchens, but requires a high price in return for its aesthetics. Granite countertops are also known to be not renewable and can’t easily be recycled.
• Engineered stone countertops have interesting designs since they are made with quartz particles and are available in a wide range of colors. This type of countertop material has a non-porous surface and is usually easy to clean and maintain in the house. Sadly, the creation of this type requires mining quartz and this has been proven to be harmful to the earth.
• Wooden countertops usually offer a nice warmth and sense of antiquity to the room and are available in a variety of colors, designs, and finishes. The usual wood used to create these countertops includes maple and oak wood, which are easy to clean, sand, and smooth. The only downfall is that it can be damaged by natural causes (e.g. water, stains) and are vulnerable to scratches.

So you see, by using green countertops in your kitchen, you don’t have to give up good looks and style!

Eco Friendly Kitchen Appliances

Shopping for household appliances is always a fun thing to do, especially when you are buying new appliances to replace your old worn out ones. Today, a lot of homeowners are excited about the new “green home” trend, which focuses on protecting our natural resources by recylcing, using natural materials and reducing our carbon footprint. The kitchen is an especially good place to practice this by using eco friendly kitchen appliances that can help reduce the amount of resources consumed. Using enery saving kitchen appliances will not only be a great solution to cut costs on your own electric bill but can be a great addition to the new look of your kitchen and help reduce the strain on the environment to boot!

Most of the newer models and units of appliances are designed to use a minimal amount of energy. Technology aims to improve the old and primitive, and we can see its progression through the production of green kitchen appliances. Here, you can acquire a modern piece of technology and also save energy, money and time. Most of these new models come in stylish compact shapes to be able to fit in any space provided in the kitchen. They also come in more variety and choices to the consumer than ever before.

A normal refrigerator can eat up as much as fifteen percent of the energy being used in the home, multiply that by the number of families in the entire United States and you can just imagine how much energy is wasted through these old models. Eco friendly kitchen appliances, particularly refrigerators, can change that since the materials and the way they are designed are aimed to promote the “green” household trend by not being too expensive. Here are some “green” kitchen appliances that you might want to consider as an alternative to the old versions in your home:

1. Refrigerator
2. Dishwasher
3. Stove
4. Microwave

If you still are unsure of what to do to keep cutting down on energy consumption costs, you can refer to some of the tips below regarding your use of the appliances you have at home.

Don’t leave the refriderator door open while you try to figure out what you wanted in there in the first place. Decide what you are going for then retrieve and close the door right away!

Try to keep your dishwasher running on full mode so that you can make use of the energy being used by it.
When your microwave or other kitchen appliance has an electronic display, make sure to turn them off and unplug them before leaving the room or when you are not using it anymore. These displays and led’s use enery and, while it isn’t a lot, it does add up!

Choosing eco friendly kitchen appliances just makes sense. The prices have come down a lot, but even if you have to pay a bit more for the most efficient ones, you will save that in energy bills over time. And with the wide chioce in styles and models, there’s just no excuse not to go green when it comes to kitchen appliances.

« Previous Page — Next Page »