Create a beautiful eco-friendly kitchen

Green and Eco-Friendly Kitchens Are Beautiful – Here’s How to Have One!!

Here’s how to create modern designer kitchens that are not just practical but are also beautiful and eco-friendly kitchens. These tips apply whether you are creating a brand new kitchen, or re-modelling an existing one.

Choosing sustainable products for your beautiful kitchen will have a positive impact on the environment.

The good news is that it’s now incredibly easy – we have a greater choice than ever before about the materials we use in our kitchens.

Eco-Friendly Kitchens use Recyclable Materials

Wood, glass and stainless steel make your kitchen greener since they are recycled, durable, and recyclable.

Stainless steel:

• Made of up to 70% recycled material
• 100% recyclable after use
• Hard-wearing and resists everyday wear-and-tear
• Keep it looking good by buffing it with a cloth occasionally.

Glass:

• Unique look
• Make sure it’s recycled glass, with no resin or additives.
• Glass can be recycled an infinite number of times.
• Hygienic surface
• Hard-wearing, scratch-resistant and durable.
• Choose the colour you want (made from factory waste), or from bottle banks which have slight colour variations
• Flecks of colour reflect the light from the work surface.

Sustainable wood:

One of the nice things about wooden worktops is that you can choose to give your beautiful kitchen a modern or a traditional look with this material.

Each year in the UK alone, 6,000,000 tons of wood are torn from houses and businesses and dumped in landfill. When pubs are converted into homes they often lose their solid wood bars, which make superb kitchen worktops.

Old wood is often much better quality because it was generally harvested much later than trees today.

Waste wood can be recycled into wood laminate which is popular for worktops.  (Make sure it’s recycled and not new wood before you buy).

Beautiful Kitchens use Nature’s Flooring

There’s a wide range of eco-friendly kitchen flooring choices.

Linoleum can be a great choice – it’s easy to clean, provides a soft landing if you drop anything onto it, it’s warm underfoot and hardwearing.  If you have an uneven surface, it’s much more forgiving than tiles for example. However, be careful when you buy.  Modern lino is often made from PVC (plastic, from petroleum, a fossil fuel) which off-gasses and is toxic when on fire.

Instead, look for genuinely natural linoleum made from linseed oil and pine resin, which is recyclable at end-of-life.

Other alternatives include Bamboo and Cork – get a full eco friendly flooring option comparison here – and of course, old wood salvaged from old buildings is also a great choice!

Eco-Friendly Kitchens have Salvage Chic

One of the greenest practices for an eco-friendly, beautiful kitchen is to re-use old products.

For example, you can make your cabinets using salvaged materials. You’ll be surprised by what you can find when you start looking!

Beautiful Kitchens Must Work!

Of course it’s great to have a beautiful, eco-friendly kitchen – but it’s got to be practical too.

Here are some insider tips from kitchen design experts.

1. Consider how your kitchen will function as a room to work in.  Trying to live in a poorly laid-out kitchen will reduce your quality of living.
2. Apply the most ergonomic principle in kitchen design – the “kitchen work triangle”.
   1. The main work sites are the refrigerator, the sink and the cooking work site (usually including your hobs and ovens).
   2. Don’t place these too far away from each other or you’ll waste a lot of time. But equally, it’s important that you don’t have a cramped kitchen either.
   3. Each part of the triangle should be between 4 – 9 feet or 1.2 – 3 metres apart
   4. There should be no obstructions, and each of the three should be positioned in an area that doesn’t require people to walk past.

Other Tips for Beautiful, Eco-Friendly Kitchens

Here are some extra things to think about when creating or re-modelling your kitchen.

• Investing in energy efficient appliances is a fantastic way to reduce bills and be more eco-friendly in designer kitchens.  (It also means you can give less of your hard-earned money to utility companies ).
• Maximising space in rooms means getting the most out of a house.
• Always bring in as much natural light as possible.  It saves energy for artificial lighting, and it’s better for you too.

Creating a sanctuary to return to at the end of a hard day is extremely important.

Remember that it can be difficult to sell a house at a high price in the current economic climate. But having a beautiful kitchen will make all the difference.

If you enjoyed this article, please Share, Like, Pin or Tweet it (buttons below) – thank you!

Warm regards,

Related:

Stop giving your hard-earned money to utility companies

Is your refrigerator running at its best?  Insider tips for improving it.

LED Kitchen lights revolutionise design!

Make your Home Smell Great!