Interiors
Explore our guides to sustainable interior design, covering every room in your home. We delve into non-toxic building materials selection, from eco-friendly flooring and cabinets to healthy kitchen countertops and zero-VOC paints. Choosing beautiful materials that are also durable and healthy is a smart investment. It improves your indoor air quality, protects your family’s well-being, and ensures the health and safety of the construction professionals who build and renovate our homes.
Related products
About
Interiors
Build Better, Renovate Better, Live BetterTM - with Ecohome...
The interior of your home is the environment where you spend the most time, making the choice of materials, finishes, and furnishings a critical factor for your family's health, wellbeing, and environmental footprint. Creating a sustainable and healthy interior goes far beyond aesthetics; it involves a conscious, informed approach to selecting non-toxic materials, ensuring healthy indoor air quality, and conserving resources. From the paint on your walls and the flooring underfoot to the fixtures in your kitchen and bathroom, every decision and good choice of interior building materials contributes to a home that is not only beautiful but also safe, durable, and truly eco-friendly, a universal goal for homeowners across Canada, the USA, and beyond.
Healthy Surfaces: Choosing Non-Toxic Walls, Floors, and Ceilings
The largest surfaces in your home, including your walls, ceilings, and floors, are the foundation of your indoor air quality and have the greatest potential to impact your health. To avoid harmful off-gassing, prioritize zero-VOC or low-VOC paints, primers, and natural finishes like clay or lime plasters. For flooring and stairs, seek out durable, renewable, and healthy materials. Excellent choices include FSC-certified solid hardwood, reclaimed wood, cork, bamboo, natural linoleum (Marmoleum), and polished concrete with low-toxicity sealers. When specifying materials, professionals and informed homeowners should look for material transparency through Declare labels or Health Product Declarations (HPDs) to understand the full lifecycle and avoid harmful chemicals on the Red List.
Eco-Friendly Kitchen & Bathroom Design: Fixtures and Finishes
Sustainable principles can be thoughtfully applied to the functional hubs of your home like kitchens and bathrooms, as well as essential finishing details like trim and interior doors. For sustainable kitchen design, specify cabinetry built from solid wood or formaldehyde-free plywood and composites. Choose durable, safe countertops made from silica-free materials, recycled content, or reclaimed wood. In bathrooms, water conservation is paramount. Install WaterSense certified low-flow toilets, faucets, and showerheads to dramatically reduce water consumption without sacrificing performance. For interior doors and trim, choose solid-core doors over hollow-core for better durability and sound insulation, and opt for solid wood trim to avoid the VOC-laden adhesives found in MDF mouldings. Using salvaged doors or architectural details can also add unique character while contributing to a circular economy.
Furnishing and Maintaining Your Healthy, Green Interior
A truly sustainable interior extends to how you furnish and maintain your space, from the living room sofa to finishing a basement and managing household waste. When choosing furniture, look beyond style for pieces made from solid wood, natural fibers, and verified non-toxic finishes. Certifications like Greenguard Gold can help you identify low-emitting items that won't compromise your air quality. When finishing a basement, prevent future mold and mildew issues by using inorganic, moisture-resistant materials like rigid foam insulation, steel studs, and magnesium oxide (MgO) boards. Sustainable interior design also embraces a "less is more" philosophy, favoring high-quality, durable pieces over disposable trends. For cleaning, use non-toxic, biodegradable products to protect your health and local waterways. Finally, designing an efficient in-home station for recycling and composting makes it easy to reduce household waste and live more lightly on the planet.
Find Sustainable Products and Green Building Professionals
Ready to start your project? Ecohome is your trusted resource for connecting with the best in the industry. Explore Canada's and the USA's most comprehensive high-performance and sustainable prefabricated and modular homes directory, searchable by Province or State. You can also browse the largest online directory of vetted green construction contractors and find the best and most experienced Architects skilled in designing sustainable homes to LEED and Passive House standards right here on Ecohome.