How to Remodel Your Home Sustainably?- It Is Easy!

In this article, I will show you how to remodel your home sustainably. You will be surprised what you can do by yourself. It is absolutely not difficult, and designing your home will make sure that you get want you desire; a luxury, industrial look to a colonial look, or others. It is up to you what you like.

When I started to refurbish and renew our house, I had no idea what possibilities I have. I already sew clothing, but why not upholstering furniture? It doesn’t seem easy, but it is so easy when you know how to do it. In my young time, I always said that I can do what others do, always!  Because we can learn everything, and having two left hands is an excuse.

You know buying materials on the market is beautiful! I love to go and search for beautiful materials, spending much time drinking coffee and looking around. It is a lovely activity in the Netherlands because the markets are great. Buying materials ensures you that there is nobody else who has the same materials in their homes. Painting tables, cupboards are easily done, but upholstering chairs and sofas might be time-consuming.

My husband possesses antique dining chairs that are outdated because they have been in the world for 200 years, and the material looks really old and used. Because I don’t want to spend much money on upholstering, I do it rather myself. And I love to do this. It is beautiful and rewarding.  Of course, they are antique, and my husband wants to have an upholsterer looking after his chairs which is familiar with antique furniture. But I don’t mind, because we can do it as well! 🙂

What is Sustainable Remodelling?

First of all, it is everything you do hand-made.  I would use high-quality materials. In the Netherlands, you can purchase these materials on the market for affordable prices. I don’t know your country, but you might be able to buy the materials very cheap on the markets too.

In Utrecht, we have a beautiful market for buying materials, and I love to go there. It is about forty-five minutes drive away from us, and we can combine it with visiting the ” Oude Gracht” located in the city center, a beautiful historical place where we find many shops and restaurants.

Also, I love to buy furniture in secondhand shops, renewing them with paint and materials. Visitors are always very impressed because they don’t see that my furniture and other decoration come from a secondhand shop. It is an artistic way of life! I can choose high-quality, sustainable paints and materials. In this way, I choose many healthy materials for the environment and us, creating a beautiful home.

At the moment, we are remodeling my husband’s office and our guest room. We have painted the walls and windows.  Luckily, we can buy paint on a water base better for the environment and our health.

We are quite busy redecorating our house, but we are also still looking to build a sustainable house, a small house, with a big garden is our dream.

However, I love to work with my hands artistically but also practically. As a nurse, I need to balance my life, and to create and design my home is giving me freedom, peace, and beauty.

Do you have any idea how much YOU can accomplish? Try it out, and let me know! I am certain you will love it!

What To Do Living On Budget?

I tell you right now; you could create a palace! Nobody would see that you are living on a budget! You don’t believe me? I will show you! 🙂 My husband loves to watch a British couple who has bought a castle in France on television. They have redecorated, refurbished, renovated this castle for five years, and you would be amazed what they have accomplished. The woman is a trained designer, and she really does great things. Amazing! I tell you, you can do the same! Believe in yourself!

I wouldn’t like to own a castle, but it doesn’t matter what you own; even a rental house is waiting to be wakened up from its sleep. And you don’t need much money! How does this sound?:) For me, it sounds great! 🙂

For a long time, we lived on a small budget because my husband has suffered bankruptcy. Can you imagine what this is? I have lined up in the supermarket to pay for my food, and I had no money left. Horrible feeling, all the people standing behind me, looking at me and knowing that I can’t pay the bill.

I tell you, only Jesus Christ, my Saviour, has helped me, again and again! Thank you, Lord Jesus!!! We have always been blessed!!  He always has helped me in such situations.

So, I know how it is living on a small budget!

However, because I love to be artistic, it is a pleasure for me to renew things in my house, creating a new style by painting furniture or sewing cushions and design my house using secondhand products. It looks gorgeous, and it is such fun living out my ideas. I love to play with colors.   You can buy such beautiful materials that nobody else will have the same furniture, colors, or clothing.

Actually, it is the same with doing groceries. We can save so much money, going to a local farmer, the market, or growing our own vegetables. We can pluck berries, nuts, or fruit from fruit trees in our surroundings. It is allowed; they grow wild. It is a pity that people don’t see them growing anymore, missing the opportunity of harvesting healthy food. If you want to learn how to recognize herbs, eatable wild plants, and fruits, you could easily follow a course or read a book. These fruits and plants are full of nutrients that help you to recover.:)

Maybe it is strange for you, but I still repair the holes in our socks because I don’t want to cover the Earth with so much rubbish throwing them away. The best would be to knit real woolen socks, but I don’t have the patience for this. But socks made from high-quality wool will last longer than industrial-made socks you buy in the shops.

Much of my clothing I have bought for little money in secondhand shops. I love to go around and look for beautiful clothing, curtains, and shoes, as well as other things. It is a great feeling when I have purchased something of high quality for little money, and believe me; I always find something. 🙂

You Can Do Nearly Everything Yourself!

You will be amazed at what you can accomplish when you start doing more things yourself. We have learned to improvise many situations because, in my youth, you didn’t have so much to use. My motto has always been: “I can do everything that others can do!” Of course, nearly everything! 😉

In Germany, we had shops where I could buy rest posts of materials like carpets to purchase for little money carpet. I loved it! Laying out the carpet in my room, I created a beautiful design.

Nowadays we don’t change the design of our house very much, because many materials are polluted. If you buy new furniture, carpets, or laminate, you pollute your indoor atmosphere due to the evaporation of the toxic chemical they have used in these products. Believe me; you don’t want to inhale the toxins.

My body is very good at reacting to pollution. It starts to detox, and I suffer all kinds of symptoms, showing me something wrong with the materials. I suffer from headaches, skin reactions, flu-like symptoms, coldness, tiredness, and dyspnoea( I can’t breathe in), my nose tissues swell.

Maybe I experience the reactions because I detox daily, eating healthy, organic foods most of the time. I love to live a healthy lifestyle.

Creating and making your own things is fascinating. We started to upholster our chairs, and this is not difficult. I looked up YouTube and watched several videos where they showed how to upholster different furniture, so I decided to buy beautiful materials and do it myself.

;

You will be amazed when you see how easy it is and how affordable. The only point you need to watch is buying a good, high-quality material for your chairs; otherwise, you might end up doing the same within 6 months because the materials are torn. High-quality is a must, especially if you don’t want to get intoxicated.

Painting lamps and tables are quite easy. We have received a secondhand kitchen as a gift, and we painted the cupboards and changed the handles. We only needed to buy some electrical devices that we wanted to include. The kitchen looks new, and like we have paid a lot of money for it. There are great possibilities to be creative and saving money.

How to Remodel Your Home Sustainably?

There are so many ways of creating a beautiful interior and remodeling your home sustainably. You don’t even need a lot of money to spend on that project. If you purchase everything new or get it done by an architect, it will cost you so much more. Ok, if you want to spend it, and you have enough savings, then, of course, leaving the work to a professional might give you peace and time to spend for yourself.

However, it pains me to throw out much money that I can save by redesigning my home myself. Taking care of the electricity is not what I can do and certainly wouldn’t do, as well everything digital. It is difficult for me to understand, and I always call professionals to get the job done. Safety first!

I would never connect my stove to electricity because I am afraid of working with electricity.

However, refurbishing your home is not difficult. Redesigning your garden furniture is also very easily done, and combining it with beautiful solar lamps and accessories creates a lovely atmosphere.

The only thing you need to have is creativity and ideas. But you grow into this, like everything you start to do. It is about investigation, reading, studying, and practicing. I ask for everything I don’t know in the hardware store. They know, and because there are so many tools you can use for support, it is actually not difficult. I can even rent the tools I need, so I don’t have an overcrowded home, a condition I don’t like.

Our bathroom was really looking awful when we rented the house, so we decided to change everything, and now it looks so luxurious and comfortable that we love to shower and spend time in our bathroom. Believe me, when you practice, everything is not difficult.

The only real project we still have to face is painting the stairs. At the moment, the stairs are still painted in an ugly blue that doesn’t fit our colors. But we are going to change it to white, and cover the stairs with pieces of carpet. It will look warmer and less noisy when one of us has to go down at night.

Final Thought

To remodel your home sustainably is not difficult!. It is easy to do if you are determined to do it yourself and will investigate and learn how to do it. Believe me, my husband and I have much experience in renovating houses. Renewing furniture, painting, and upholstering is not a problem if you can watch how you have to do it. YouTube is perfect in this; you will find many ways to redesign your own home.

Here is another video about how to reupholster a couch! Have fun!:)

If you have any advice, I would love to hear it! I am a learner, like you. But maybe you are a professional; please, feel free to tell us how it works. 🙂

To Your Best,

Sylvie