Leather is not the environmentally friendly product that the industry has suggested.  The adverse environmental and health impacts of the leather industry are huge.  Animal skin is turned into finished leather by the use of many dangerous mineral salts, formaldehyde, coal-tar derivatives, and cyanide based oils and dyes.   These chemicals prevent the leather from being naturally biodegradable as the industry claims.  Leather products can last thousands of years and the toxic chemicals with which they are infused leach into the environment during that time.   Leather pieces found in Northern Germany were estimated to be 12,000 years old, dating from the Neolithic and European Bronze Ages!

People who have worked in and lived near tanneries have died of cancer from groundwater contaminated by the toxic chemicals used to process and dye the leather.   A New York State Department of Health study found that more than half of all testicular cancer victims worked in tanniers.

Sports use huge amounts of leather. It takes 3,000 cows to supply the National Football League (NFL) with enough leather for a year’s supply of footballs!  It takes the leather of 3.8 steers to make the 72 footballs used in every NFL SuperBowl alone.

It is so easy for us to break the chain of separation from nature that has allowed such cruelty to exist. All we have to do is stop buying leather.

1) Area Rugs

Whether it’s in the living room, dining room, or bedroom rugs define spaces. Sometimes a rug is even enough to define an entire room! Get a great area rug, grab a few big pillows, and a serving tray and voila! A room becomes a bedroom!

2) Throw Pillows

Sometimes changing the look of a room is as easy as adding (or subtracting!) throw pillows. For just a few bucks you can add a punch of color and a splash of fun to any room.

3) Side tables

Get creative! Any flat surface can be used as a side table? Have a great old suitcase? Turn it on its side and you have an instant and charming side table.

4) Lighting

Lighting changes the mood of any room, and you can change that mood with something a simple as little battery-operated timed candles. They’re inexpensive, safe, and can add the hint of drama every room needs.

5)  Curtains

Keep it sheer, keep it simple. Dressing up a window with a tension rod and white sheers means that, with no tools at all, you can cover a window while letting all the light in.

6) Fabric

From walls to beds to sofas and more, creating a cohesive look can be achieved with a few well-placed pieces of fabric. Decide your style, find your fabric, and use it throughout the room. Add the fabric to a canvas and hang it. Fold it neatly and add it to the foot of the bed. Drape it casually over the back of a chair.

7) Fresh flowers

Who doesn’t love fresh flowers? A bouquet in a vase says it all. Even a solitary bud can light up a room with its charm.

Looking for more home staging tips? Contact us here!

[via REALTORmag]

[image via]

According to Barb Schwarz, one of the founders of home staging in the 1970s, defines home staging this way: “Home staging is professionally preparing homes for sale so that they appeal to the most amount of buyers and generate the highest price in the least amount of time on market.”

But what to do and where to start? Here are Barb’s 7 Steps of Staging to help you out:

• Stand in the doorway of each room, and even outside the home, as if you were a home buyer, and
assess whether every area of the home best conveys what it would be like to live in the home for visitors
to an open house.
• Make a plan, and be open to change. We look at what the purpose of each room is, and what
scene we need to set.
• De-accessorize. Decide on what to pack and what to keep in each room and select which accessories you may use in different rooms.
• Remove unnecessary furniture. Again, less is more.
• Arrange the remaining furniture in the best way and re-distribute those you may be able to use in other rooms.
• Re-accessorize each room.
• Fine-tune each area of the home.

And Barb has some more advice to keep in mind: “The investment in staging is always less than your first price reduction.”

And keep in mind that here at Infusion Home Design, we can most definitely help you out!

(via SDAR)