7 less than obvious ways to implement cruelty free + sustainable interior design into your space.
Designing thoughtfully doesn’t mean you have to load your home or business with hemp, pineapple leather, and a menagerie of house plants. If hippy chic is your thing, go for it, but if you’re looking for alternate ways to reduce your footprint, avoid animal products in your space, and still have it look undeniably cool, check out some suggestions below.
1.Keep existing elements.
First and foremost, Keep existing elements where you can. Anytime you can maintain current structures or materials, the less likely you are to inadvertently bring unsustainable or non-vegan products into your space. Bonus that you’re also not throwing away a part of history or contributing to a landfill.
Even if you find yourself in a 90’s interior nightmare, there are always ways to salvage, refinish, and reuse some existing elements and make them harmonious with the rest of the design and your overall aesthetic. If this seems too daunting or impossible…the right interior designer can help :).
We (as in, humanity) have spent the last two decades stripping spaces down to grey boxes and luckily people are once again clamoring for charm and details. Be a people pleaser.
2. Utilize vintage and salvaged materials, furniture, and accessories.
Layering in the right amount of vintage and salvaged pieces not only adds depth and interest to your space, but again, helps safeguard against unknown materials and chemicals from making their way into your home. New furniture has the potential to off gas and contain VOCs. Used furniture may also have a smell…the smell of history and being loved by those before you. :) But really, nothing a natural deodorizer can’t fix.
Buying vintage also keeps furniture from the street sides and landfills and helps in the tiniest way to combat over production. Coming from someone that loves stuff, there is TOO MUCH stuff, and a lot of it looks the same when you’re buying from the big-name retailers. Do yourself a favor and get a dining table that your neighbor, mom, and best friend don’t already own.
If modern is your thing and/or you’re squeamish about having reclaimed furniture in your space, try layering in vintage accessories. Sites like Etsy are still a go-to for your last layer. An oil painting with a gilded frame can offset clean lines to make a space more eclectic and curated. Of course, if you want your space to remain cruelty free, avoid anything leather and pass on the shearling throw.
Vintage finds don’t begin and end with furniture. There are also salvaged building materials and finishes you can include in your design such as glass, (textured glass > clear glass), tiles, door and door frames, the list goes on. You’ve all watched Fixer Upper at some point, you get it.
3. Limewash your walls.
Not only does limewash add more visual depth than standard paint, but it’s made from limestone, water, and natural pigments. Unfortunately (and annoyingly, as a vegan and a designer) most paint brands contain animal byproducts such as gelatin, ( boiled bone goo) ox gull, (gallbladder bile) and casein (milk derivative).
Obviously, limewashing every wall in your space may be overkill, so if you do want to use a vegan paint, there are sadly only 2 readily available brands in the US, Farrow & Ball ( just avoid the “Casein Distemper” and “Soft Distemper” lines) and Backdrop.
There are several vegan friendly paint brands out of the UK that have limited US retail locations and/or distribute to the US; Graphenstone, Ecos, and Lakeland, as examples. These brands are an option for those painting their homes, but for commercial spaces utilizing contractors, it gets a little tough to talk them out of their Benjamin Moore comfort zone. Friendly reminder: the contractor works for you; they should be buying exactly what was specified.
4. Consider terrazzo.
The iconic flooring material of the 1920’s made its comeback a decade or so ago and continues to evolve and offer a magnitude of design options.
The solid material is comprised of aggregate ( aka chips) of recycled marble, granite, or glass embedded in cement. It’s VOC free and has efficient production and installation, which reduces waste. Once terrazzo is installed, it LASTS. Its why so many art deco buildings to this day have terrazzo flooring.
In addition to floors (and cast into stairs a la the image above), countertops, backsplashes and walls can be clad in terrazzo. Whereas it historically was poured in place or cast in slabs, it’s now available in tiles for easier and more flexible installations and creative solutions. It’s classic. It’s always cool, and now you can find options with marble chips as big as your hand and who’s not here for that drama?
5. Wood > wood “look”.
For the love of god, the planet, and my personal design sensibilities please relax with the LVT (or LVP as I’ve heard my non designer friends call it). We get it, you want to save a couple bucks and the wood look LVT is so similar in appearance to the real wood floor. ( I would argue it’s not, but alas).
Some LVT is sustainable, or claims to be, and I’m not here to argue that sustainable LVT doesn’t exist, but most is made out of PVC which is a hazardous chemical and affects those producing it, the animals in close proximity to its production, and the end user. Most my strife with this product and its rise in popularity over the past 15 years or so is that it’s pretending to be something it’s not. I have the same personal woes with wood look porcelain tile. The sheen, the feel under foot, the noise it makes when walked on, it’s not wood. In addition, LVT will not last, nor will it be celebrated. 100 years from now no one will be thrilled to pull carpet to revel existing LVT. Let’s leave something nice behind for the future generations.
Unfortunately, from a vegan perspective, wood flooring has its issues as well (apparently we can’t have nice things). Engineered wood uses less wood, as a solid slice of wood is the top layer of the plank only, with layers of plywood below acting as a substrate, hence, using less wood. This, vs traditional hard wood flooring, which is a solid wood plank. So, engineered wood uses less wood and is usually cheaper, sounds good right? Kind of. Sadly, it’s hard to know 100% what is in our building materials and often times plywood can use blood as an adhesive. BLOOD.
So, it’s really an individual choice when it comes to wood flooring. If you air on the side of sustainability and not using raw materials is your MO, I suggest engineered wood floors. If you want to ensure your floors aren’t bound together with animal blood, hardwood may be the way to go. Keep in mind if you’re reading this surrounded by 4 walls, you may already be living within blood infused plywood box, so you’ve gotta pick your battles.
6. Substitute white ash for white oak.
On a lighter topic, if and when you use wood products, White Ash is at the top of the list for being most sustainable. The Ash tree is abundant and fast growing. White Oak, which is probably the most well-known wood for flooring, millwork, and furniture is currently at risk of significant decline in the US. This is something to consider when selecting a wood, international forests and suppliers may be more sustainable and always seek out FSC certification.
As most of us know, Bamboo is the most renewable flooring material, but the designer in me that worked in commercial design the early aughts simply cannot recommend this as an option.
7. Choose natural stone over man made quartz.
Finally, friends, natural stone. As is obvious from the points above, all materials have pros and cons. And yes, as a designer I do like nice, sometimes expensive, things. So, this is where I sell you on natural stone vs quartz (solid surface).
Natural Stone is nonrenewable. It’s cut away from the earth and does not grow back. However, there is a widely abundant supply and humans are bound to destroy the planet far before we come close to using up all the stone.
Natural stone is considered one of the most sustainable and eco-friendly countertop and flooring materials. It does not require a factory or other materials to manufacture. No additives, no chemicals and is 100% recyclable.
Obviously, we cannot know if all stone suppliers provide stellar humane working conditions, and that sucks. But in opposition, we do know that producing quartz is harmful to those that work with the material. Silica and resins are released in the air while cutting and griding the quartz which can cause cancer, and a multitude of diseases.
Quartz is a somewhat new material, with its popularity taking off in recent decades due to manufacturing techniques that make it look like natural stone, at a lower cost. This means we don’t fully understand the long-term repercussions of this material on human health. As a vegan, humans are animals, so I care about their wellbeing. As a designer, no man made quartz is as beautiful as natural stone.
This tethers to my opinions on LVT vs wood. I’ll use this analogy: If you want to go out to an expensive restaurant, you should have enough money (and respect) to leave a 20% tip, even though 20% of a large bill is… a large tip. If you’re looking to design or redesign and you have expensive tastes, consider that 20% upcharge as the respect you are paying to use real materials.
