Top Decorating Tips to Reduce Allergens in Your Home

Guest Blogger #505, Entry #1155, May 7, 2012

Is there anything worse than coming home after a long day of sneezing through seasonal pollen only to be bombarded by the dust and pet dander floating around your home? If you’re sick and tired of your house causing you to be sick and tired, perhaps it’s time to implement an allergy overhaul in your home by tossing the stale décor that only exacerbates your respiratory (or other) issues. And here are a few redecorating tips that are sure to nip your sniffling, sneezing, sleepless nights in the bud and give you the allergy-free enclave you’ve been craving.

Replace carpet with hardwood flooring

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Opt for hardwoods

If your home is carpeted, the odds of it being a hypoallergenic product are practically nil. So if you want to seriously cut back on allergens in your home, pull up the carpeting and peek underneath to see if you’ve got a salvageable hardwood subfloor to work with. Otherwise, look for reclaimed options in wood and stone to replace the dust-laden carpets in your domicile while doing less harm to the Earth in the process.

Remove plush furnishings

Nothing traps allergens like the combination of fabric and foam, so while overstuffed furnishings may be fun to sink into at the end of a laborious day, they won’t do your sinuses any favors. Replace them with anything from leather to vinyl to concrete furnishings complete with nylon-covered padding. Pretty much anything is going to be better for you than the plush furnishings that are currently puffing allergens into the air every time someone flops down on them.

Use hypoallergenic textiles

When it comes to the textiles in your home, which tend to gather quite a bit of dust over time, consider replacing them with organic and hypoallergenic options. This can include bedding, throws, decorative pillows, rugs, and curtains. And when it comes to window treatments like blinds and shutters, which rarely get dusted (or it’s difficult to do so effectively, as with Venetian blinds), consider products like in-glass blinds, which are basically screens inserted between two panes of glass to provide you with privacy while still letting the sunlight in.

Use hypoallergenic textiles in your home

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Get some plants

This might sound counterintuitive since many people suffer from plant-based allergies (often caused by pollen or spores). But you’re not allergic to EVERY plant on the planet. And the reason you should include some greenery in your home is not only to reduce stress, improve your mental state, and brighten up your décor; they can also boost oxygen levels in your home and reduce toxins in the air.

Try non-VOC paint

You don’t need the expertise you’d get from nursing masters programs to know that the awful smell put off by your average interior paint is not exactly healthy. But did you know that the harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that cause this odor initially can actually linger in the air long after their detectable scent is gone? Studies have shown that VOCs are released from paint over extended periods of time, continuing to pollute your interior air. And the allergy and asthma symptoms they can cause are truly the least of their potentially hazardous side effects to your health. So you should definitely consider non-VOC options the next time you paint.

For more allergen ideas on Stagetecture, click here.