Less is more

Sustainable decorating

When thinking about sustainability paint has quite a role to play.

Obviously paints are generally designed to protect the substrate they are painted onto reducing the need for replacement and maintenance, but there are some less obvious benefits too:

• You can make a room’s temperature feel more comfortable with careful paint selections – warm colours will warm up cool rooms, while cool colours will reduce the perceived heat in hot rooms. So even if the temperature is identical to what it was prior to the painting, we humans will perceive the space differently.
• Paint is very useful as a camouflage -- painting a high ceiling and pipes black or another dark colour to make them disappear reduces the need to install ceiling tiles or plasterboard. This means fewer products are used to complete the project.
• And for the more artistic, trompe-l'oeil, which can be anything from painting a concrete floor to look like tile to giving the illusion of depth to make a space more comfortable, is a handy tool for sustainable decorating. With this technique, nothing has to be torn out to create the new look, no new products need to be manufactured, shipped and installed – all it requires is the paint and the painter.

See the How Green is Resene section for more ideas on sustainable decorating.

From the Resene News – issue 1/2009