Renewable resources — like bamboo and cork — are popular choices in today's home decorating. The eco-friendly benefits of these materials offer warm color tones and simple beauty that consumers are finding quite attractive, especially in window treatment designs.
Eco-themed products are serious contenders against more traditional contenders when it comes to revamping home decor. Part of the allure in using organic and natural materials for window fashions stems from the multi-level appeal to the senses. Many of these materials offer an exotic look that evokes visual interest as well as a tactile experience through touch.
That appeal is further enhanced in the logic and emotion parts of our environmental psyche — renewable materials, like grasses, offer increased insulating effect in the forms of window shades and blinds while at the same time offer something like consolation to the soul when we choose to use sustainable resources from the earth.
If you're new to "green living" or want a fairly simple and inexpensive way to revive the look of your home in a weekend project, here are several options to consider:
Organic & Natural Material Pull-up Shades
Look for bamboo, hemp and other cellulose-based fibers that offer unique colorations, natural beauty and texture. The Earthshade company offers a big selection of innovative raw materials and non-chemical fabrics which make for stylish, clean-lined design for standard Roman and Traditional pull-up shades. They also offer newer styles of top-down/bottom-up lifting shades. They tout themselves as "the irst and only green company to offer window fashions that are easy on our planet and delightful to the soul."
Energy Efficient Window Shades
If your goal is to incorporate design that helps save on heating and cooling costs to help protect the environment, look for materials that (1) insulate to reduce heat flow, and (2) control the sun's heat during peak times of the year.
Hunter Douglas is a worldwide leader in creating innovative, energy-efficient window fashions that can significantly reduce your home's energy loss. The company's Duette® honeycomb shades dramatically reduce heat flow to save both energy and heating costs.
Recylced Fabrics & Non-toxic Materials
In this category you can find options manufactured from soy beans, seed pods and bamboo that provide practical items that are machine washable and earth-friendly.
One of the newest innovations is Ingeo®, manufactured from a natural cluster fiber derived from corn starch, which is renewable. It's biodegradable, and like other synthetic material compositions it's higher in strength than even some natural fibers and can be safely and fully composted at the end of the product's life cycle. Mass retailer Target carries its own line of Ingeo home goods products. This is the same material that Frito-Lay has begun using for packaging of its Sun Chips line of snack foods.
Many of the new fabrics include additional benefits like built-in antibacterial alloys to reduce static and help repel dust mites and dirt, a bonus for those of us who don't get around to washing our window fabrics on a regular basis.
When choosing window treatments, look to make sure the materials are rated as fire retardant "Assured", a treatment technology that recognizes the importance of fire safety considerations in the global window fashions industry, according to Leonard Siegel, managing director at ITA, a leading developer of innovative window treatment products.
Suffer allergies? Shop around for products with non-toxic dyes and mold-resistant "green" elements woven directly into the materials.
If you still favor more traditional styles like draperies, you can still bring some "green" into your lifestyle by choosing fabrics or materials that can be layered (interlined) or have high thread count (bewteen 180 to 400 — anything higher serves little more purpose, other than being costlier).
A 2009 report by the U.S. Dept. of Energy notes that of a typical household's budget, 43% goes to our utility bills for heating a cooling.
Regardless of how you choose to green up your window treatments, you'll recognize better savings if you keep blinds, curtains or shades on the southern-facing windows open during cooler months to bring warmth into the home; close them at night. During warm months keep window coverings closed during the day to keep your home cooler.
For more information on "green living" idea see the article greenliving.suite101.com/article.cfm/recycled_outdoor_furniture
 |
 |
 |
