Tips for trendy, sustainable and healthy design of your living space

Tip 1: Embrace your own style – anything goes

The trend towards work­ing from home means that people are spend­ing even more time in enclosed spaces than before. “Cocoon­ing”, i.e. the desire to stay “nes­ted up at home”, com­bined with Scand­inavi­an “hygge”, which stands for a warm and cozy liv­ing atmo­sphere, are cur­rently determ­in­ing the fur­nish­ing style. But cool­er trends are also in demand. No mat­ter which liv­ing style you prefer, wood is always a pop­u­lar mater­i­al, because it radi­ates cozy warmth and has a pos­it­ive effect on the indoor cli­mate. Clas­sic par­quet floor­ing is still very much in demand and scores highly in terms of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, espe­cially when firmly glued to the sub­floor. For years now, oak has been the wood of choice for many house­own­ers. But oth­er wood spe­cies such as beech, ash, maple, cherry, wal­nut and birch are also quite pop­u­lar. Due to their long ser­vice life, nat­ur­al stone floor­ing has a strong appeal to homeown­ers, espe­cially in high-traffic areas such as cor­ridors, hall­ways, cloak­rooms and guest toi­lets. Ceram­ic tiles, cur­rently also avail­able in cool shades of blue and grey, are mainly installed on bath­room walls and floors.

Tip 2: Furniture and textiles – who dares wins!

Even with trends com­ing and going at a rap­id pace, wood is still the mater­i­al of choice for indoor fur­niture. Espe­cially sol­id oak and wal­nut are among the favored wood spe­cies. Mod­ern kit­chen design has been char­ac­ter­ized for quite some time by dark tones as well as sur­faces with a groove struc­ture and ver­tic­al wood slats. Now, this style is also very much in vogue for din­ing and liv­ing rooms. It is accom­pan­ied by fur­niture with dark lacquered sur­faces.

Don’t be afraid to try bold com­bin­a­tions. Take home tex­tiles, for example: Nat­ur­al tones such as earth or cof­fee brown can be com­bined with fab­rics in bright shades of rose, pink and purple. Interi­or walls are mostly plastered these days and either have a smooth fin­ish or a rough tex­ture. In addi­tion to clas­sic white, there is an increas­ing num­ber of oth­er plaster col­ors, ran­ging from muted shades of beige to bold col­ors.

Tip 3: Keep an eye on supply chains

Wheth­er build­ing mater­i­als, sur­faces or fur­nish­ings – house­own­ers and ten­ants should focus more closely on the care­ful selec­tion of products for their home. In the interests of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, they should find out more about the sup­ply chains and ask ques­tions such as: Where does the wood for the floor­ing come from? Was the fur­niture pro­duced in a cli­mate-neut­ral way? Do the man­u­fac­tur­ers rule out child labor?