Along with a raft of aesthetic choices involved in designing a kitchen or a living room may come decisions related to sustainability, or considering the impact your seemingly small decisions can have on your generation and future ones.
Sustainability, which can encompass both health concerns and environmental impact, has been drawing more interest from consumers, designers, architects, homebuilders and manufacturers in recent years.
In November, British home design company House of Hackney plans to debut a decorative ceiling rose made entirely of mycelium, or mushroom fiber, which is a natural material that can eventually be reintegrated into the Earth. Even mass-market paint companies like Sherwin Williams with its SuperPaint and Benjamin Moore with its Gennex Color Technology now offer paint with zero-VOC (volatile organic compounds) formulations.
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
The more we learn about the dangerous chemicals that can leach into the air from paint, carpet, building materials or the renovation process itself, the more our own health seems pivotal. Factor in the long-term environmental consequences of creating more waste headed for the landfill when we renovate, and the evidence is mounting for a change of direction.
The Global 2030 Challenge has set the goal that all new buildings and major renovations be carbon-neutral in 2030 as part of a United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda. According to the U.N., the “consumption of energy is the dominant contributor to climate change, accounting for around 60 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Jillian Pritchard Cooke is a Peachtree Hills-based interior designer and founder of program called Wellness Within Your Walls. The program teaches design professionals across the country how to integrate sustainability features such as low-flush toilets, rainwater collection, solar panels, repurposed material for wood floors and zero or low-VOC paint. She focuses on nontoxic, organic, low-impact materials to decrease a home’s carbon footprint and create a healthier space for the people who live there.
Credit: Mali Azima
Credit: Mali Azima
The concern for personal and global health doesn’t end when the project does. You can aim for a sustainable home with air filters and purifiers, for example. But if you use cleaning products loaded with chemicals, she said, you are introducing those materials into the air.
Since a cancer diagnosis in 2006, Cooke has dedicated her career to factoring wellness and the environment into interior design, whether you are repainting a room, redoing a kitchen or building a dream home. She was the interior designer for the first LEED-certified (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) home in the Southeast — Rutherford and Laura Seydel’s EcoManor — completed in 2007.
For Cooke, a sustainable home begins with health as a central consideration.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
“Sustaining life and well-being within the home” is critical, she said. Cooke uses the example of new parents painting a nursery in anticipation of their baby’s arrival, without realizing the paint could off-gas, or emit harmful materials into the air as a byproduct of the chemical process, in the room where the baby sleeps.
Cooke said she believes the COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in getting people to think more about sustainability.
“It really did help with the paradigm shift of thinking about what your air quality is all about at home,” she said.
Washington, D.C., architect Will Teass is the co-founder of Teass/Warren Architects who designed a “net zero” home there for his family. A net-zero home uses elements such as solar panels to produce as much energy on an annual basis as it consumes.
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
In 2022, Teass completed his conversion of a 100-year-old row house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. He chose Energy Star electric appliances rather than gas ones. He used solar panels, extra insulation and a heat pump water heater, among other sustainable elements. In addition, the lowest level of Teass’ home has a rental apartment that can one day be used to house an elderly parent, a way to add longevity to the design — something Teass sees as central to sustainability.
Longevity, to him, means choosing design elements that will not need to be scrapped or reconfigured as a family grows and changes.
“To me that’s the most sustainable thing — to reuse a building that you’ve already got,” he said.
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
Teass and Cooke both highlight the need to work with materials that already exist, rather than continually buying newer, cheaper materials that are often shipped from overseas. Reuse is one of the most sustainable practices you can focus on, whether that means buying a beautiful vintage dresser at the thrift store rather than a new one or incorporating aging-in-place details like a ground-floor primary bedroom that will allow you to stay in your home longer.
Some people have the perception that sustainability means their home will look a certain way. But “it just looks like a normal house,” Teass said. “It does not exude sustainability. When you look at it, it’s sort of invisible. And I think that is somewhat important.”
To anticipate the breakdown of costs in creating a sustainable renovation, Teass sat down with an energy expert to help him understand potential improvements as well as the ultimate costs and benefits. He recommends homeowners considering a renovation also consult with an expert at the beginning of a project.
“My question for the designer is: What small decisions can I do that increase the sustainability of this project?” Teass said.
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
Credit: Kate Wichlinski
While adding sustainable features can increase a renovation budget by 7% to 8%, Teass said, those features often pay you back over time with reduced heating and cooling bills.
“It’s really thinking about trying to create timeless and flexible spaces so that people are not — in five or 10 years, when a family changes or a new owner comes in — having to spend a lot of time and energy and money on reconfiguring that space to work for them,” Teass said.
Too often, he added, the focus has been on ripping out the old and putting in the new, as seen in people’s interest in flipping properties and renovation-centered TV shows.
“It’s all about changing stuff,” he said. “And I really wish that they would shift focus a little bit and talk about more creative ways to potentially repurpose some of these things.”
Felicia Feaster is a longtime lifestyle and design editor who spent 11 years covering gardening, interior design, trends and wellness for HGTV.com. Felicia is a contributor to MarthaStewart.com and has been interviewed as a design expert by The New York Times, Forbes and the Associated Press.
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