Kara Richardson
Spruce Up Any Area Using These Sustainable Decorating Tips

I'm going to be real honest-we've been meaning to redecorate our living room for at least 3 years. We even bought a sofa in February of 2018 that we didn't unwrap until last month. When quarantine started, my mom and I made up our minds to finally start our living room refresh and it's been a lot of work. I've cleaned more walls than I've wanted and patched more holes than I'd care to admit. But the one thing that's really satisfied me is that we've hardly bought anything new. I joke about having everything we'd ever need to decorate already in our home but we literally do. Let me show you what we did to spruce up our newly decorated mid-century modern bookcase. Hopefully you'll be able to take some of these tips and incorporate them into something you're trying to redecorate.
Start with a clean slate. Before we built up the decor for our bookcase, we took everything off the shelves and cleaned it real good. It makes no sense to redecorate anything with a pound of dust. Clean what you're working with.
Decide on a color story. We tend to like warm tones, and since we just got this funky new rug in shades of red, orange, brown and white, we knew we wanted our bookcase decor to play off that. Your accent pieces should always work with the tones of the major focal points in your room.
Use what you have. All of the decor on our shelves came from different areas in our house. We cleaned the flowers, which are at least 7 years old, and filled in gaps in the decor with coordinating candles and books.
Invest in quality pieces that will last a long time. If you do have to buy decor pieces for your space, make sure to buy timeless, quality pieces. This doesn't mean that you have to spend tons of money. You would be amazed at what you'd find at estate sales, garage sales, auctions and thrift stores.
Has quarantine encouraged you to start your own redecorating project? Let us know in the comments below. More importantly, take pictures and tag us on Instagram or Facebook @thecreaterestorebrand. If you're new to sustainable and eco-friendly living and want to incorporate it in your own home, read our blog series SIMPLE WAYS TO ADOPT A MORE SUSTAINABLE, EARTH FRIENDLY LIFESTYLE PART 1, PART 2 AND PART 3. Here's to decorating and reusing what you have.