It is possible to marry good design with eco-consciousness and taking steps to make your house greener will actually save you money, as Serena Fokschaner discovers.

Doing up your house used to be relatively straight-forward. Choosing the perfect shade of Georgian white paint to go with your Shaker-style kitchen cabinets was a matter of taste and budget.

Nowadays, house-holders face a new conundrum: how do you decorate your interior without polluting the atmosphere with the noxious cocktail of carcinogens, mutagens and other equally unfriendly by-products of the average building material?

Well, the good news is that eco-decorating has never been easier. The recent dramatic shift in awareness about climate change has galvanised the interiors industry into making environmentally-friendly products more accessible. We have yet to reach the time when you can pop into your local superstore for a pot of organic paint but, in the meantime, chains like B&Q – who hit the headlines when they started stocking wind turbines – are investing funds and energy in to making eco more mainstream.

The bad news is that unless you’re building from scratch, retro-fitting your standard urban terraced house to green standards will never be straightforward. Earth-friendly products tend to be more expensive than standard DIY buys so if you’re on a budget you’ll have to compromise along the way. Also, if you opt for the eco route you’ll probably have to do battle with your builders to persuade them that their one-size, skip-it-and-replace-with-MDF-fits-all approach just won’t help the world.

In West London, Mary-Lu Bakker has recently finished the first phase of eco-restoring her Victorian townhouse. The house is also in a conservation area so solar panels must be hidden from view and wind turbines are out. Despite these constraints, she has managed to convert the old collection of flats in to one house with a largely green conscience.

One of the most contentious modern materials is MDF, which contains hazardous wood dust and formaldehyde, a chemical that continually releases ‘off-gasses’, or noxious vapours. Its production uses a lot of energy and it is difficult to dispose of. The Bakker’s house is resolutely MDF-free. ‘Instead we’ve used timber from sustainable sources,’ says Mary-Lu. Bookshelves, for instance, are crafted from solid English oak. Costing around £5,000 they were at least twice as much MDF but Mary-Lu believes she has offset the extra expense by economising elsewhere.

Paint is another hazard. Standard brands contain VOCs, volatile organic compounds, which let off gas at room temperature and have been linked to cancer and other diseases. Mary-Lu researched paints that would be friendly to the environment and the health of her daughter who suffers from asthma. ‘We considered 100% organic paints but I’d heard the coverage wasn’t so good. Instead I used low-VOC paints from Fired Earth.’ The ceilings were painted with casein milk paint, an alternative to traditional white distemper, from Nutshell Paints.

Instead of new curtains, shutters have been revived and original floorboards restored with eco-friendly, water-based varnish. Most of the furniture, including in the children’s rooms, is 20th-century antique sourced from places like Alfies Antiques Market. The Bakkers also installed low-energy light bulbs and switched their gas and electricity suppliers to Scottish Power, which offers a ‘green’ tarrif drawn from renewable sources like wind and water and has proved comparatively reasonable.

Interior designer Oliver Heath has done much to spread the eco-decorating message through commissions, books and television programmes. He’s pleased the green debate has finally hit home but counsels clients to ignore the ‘bells and whistles technology of wind turbines or solar panels’ and tackle the basics first. ‘There’s no point in turning your house in to a power station unless it’s properly insulated,’ he says.

The average old house loses an estimated 35% of its heat through the walls; 25% through the roof; 25% through windows and doors and 15% through the floor. You can shave hundreds off your bills and reduce carbon emissions simply by investing in efficient insulation. Steer clear of conventional standard insulation materials like polystyrene or mineral and glass fibres which contain ozone-depleting CFCs (chloroflurocarbons) and carcinogens. Instead, choose carbon-neutral alternatives like sheep’s wool, Warmcel or Termex made from recycled newspaper (much nicer if you have to crawl into the attic). Fit doors with draught excluders and upgrade your windows (the Ventrolla sash-window system is effective for cutting out noise and reducing draughts).

Heath’s own home demonstrates that you can marry good design with eco-consciousness in even the smallest details. For the floors, for instance, he has used cork, a foot-friendly sustainable material (try www.floorsourceuk.com) and he’s a fan of Linoleum made from linseed oil (banish memories of streaky crimson stairs; today’s Lino comes in cool contemporary hues). For kitchen surfaces, Oliver used crushed recycled glass cut to fit and zero-formaldehyde MDF, denser and more expensive than conventional MDF but worth it ‘if you’re not keen on poisoning yourself’. Curtains are either secondhand or fairtrade organic cotton (see Oliver’s site, www.ecocentric.co.uk) which is grown without pesticides.

Julia Hailes is another eco-pioneer who has seen the movement gather pace since she published her first Green Consumer Guide in 1989. Back then, she says ‘it was a real challenge to find suitable products’. For the latest edition (published this May by Simon & Schuster) the biggest problem was finding enough space to list the hundreds of eco-alternatives – from lightbulbs to boilers – road-tested at home by Julia and her children. Her book should be prescribed reading for anyone who, as Julia puts it, ‘wants to do things differently. We’re on the crest of a wave: now people really want to do something to make a difference.’

Meet the challenge and make the change

• Read Oliver Heath’s Home Book (Cassell Illustrated, £12.99) – it has a good chapter on eco decorating.
• Finding eco-friendly design for children is tricky but Gayle Warwick produces a covetable range of children’s bed linen made from organic cotton. www.gaylewarwick.com
• Choose 100% wool carpets: they’re earth-friendly and better for your health than conventional synthetic ones. The Alternative Flooring Company has a good range as
  well as sisals and coirs. www.alternativeflooring.co.uk
• Find eco-aware design at: www.ecocentric.co.uk. Recycled glasses, toys and playhouses made from recycled materials or towels made from bamboo fibre (no, not scratchy) should make you change your ways.
• Architect Alex Michaelis, of Michaelis Boyd Associates, who has built his eco-house in Notting Hill, is a champion of green building. Wherever possible, he re-uses original materials – bricks, timber, pipework – in the refurbishment of period properties. Urge your builder to do the same. It will cost more, but what price the planet?
• Insulate, insulate. According to the WWF the average household creates about 6 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Find out how to reduce your emissions by visiting the Energy Savings Trust website. www.est.org.uk
• Opt for natural or low VOC (volatile organic compounds) paint. Becker Paints boast the EC ‘eco-flower’ symbol for environmental safety and can be mixed to match any hue. (Ray Munn, 861 Fulham Rd, SW6 020 7736 9876). Other brands to look out for: Nutshell, Earth Born, Auro and Georgina Barrow at www.greenshop.co.uk.
• It’s estimated there could be as much as 100 million litres of paint stored in homes across the UK. Rather than leave it unused, donate it to a local community project via the Community Repaint Scheme. www.communityrepaint.org.uk.
• Fit low-energy light bulbs. They don’t look as pretty but they last 12 times longer than standard ones and I rather like their soft white glow.
• The Green Building Store’s website www.greenbuildingstore.co.uk is a good source of information and products for green DIYers. Also try www.ecomerchant.co.uk or www.constructionsources. For energy and water saving devices go to www.cat.org.uk.
• Opt for bamboo flooring. As the world’s fastest growing woody plant it is sustainable, tough and looks good. www.urbaneflooring.com.
• Or try Lino, it’s natural and comes in good neutral tones at www.forbo.co.uk.
• Check furniture and wood comes from sustainable sources. The Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) has a database of companies selling wood from well-managed forests at www.fsc-uk.org. Buy salvaged or reclaimed wood www.demolitions.co.uk.
• Re-use, re-cycle: see www.salvo.co.uk, www.wantsandoffers.com, www.freecycle.org or www.whatdoidowiththis.co.uk, a new site that sells surplus building materials.