Doing Better

Doing better in terms of Home Decor to us carries similar themes to other aspects of life: choose natural materials, buy second hand when possible, and buy from sustainable sources and small businesses when possible. Whenever we are outfitting a new space we find a lot of great fair trade and natural materials at West Elm. We also spend a lot of time regularly visiting local thrift stores and we love the Habitat for Humanity Restore, where we both shop for treasures and donate items we no longer need so they can still serve their purpose somewhere else in our community. We like to visit thrift stores and Habitat Restores in other places we visit regularly too. When you don't happen upon the type of item you are looking for at a thrift store or Restore, and you don't have time to keep looking for months or years there, you can always look for it on Ebay and Etsy. I also like to think like Ikea and contemplate what existing items are out there that I could repurpose to meet a given need. For example, I recently needed a trash can for a new bathroom and I thought about what other things are about the right size and shape and would even have a hinged lid. Instead of buying a brand new SimpleHuman type lidded trash can, I found an old aluminum bait can from the 1970's with a hinged lid from a seller on Etsy. It's perfect for our needs, we're repurposing an old thing, and it has so much more character than something new.

Candles are a particular aspect of home decor that can be tricky to navigate in terms of what is best for health and sustainability. See below for a great source for doing better when it comes to candles.