As part of my “Healthy Home” series, I wanted to address the furniture that you put in your home. Whether you are looking to remodel, new build, down size, up size, or just re-vamp your existing home, furniture can play a large part in the design and health of your home.
Often times furniture can contain formaldehydes or brominated fire retardants. Which, while the intention of using these chemicals is designed to preserve the furniture, they can also produce a toxic off-gas which can be hazardous to your health. In addition to this, wood finishes are often covered in veneers or other finishes that have toxic off-gasing. While someone with good health might not see any affect, someone who is unhealthy or more prone to becoming sick (due to illness, allergies, or older age, etc.) might see some affects on their everyday lives. For example; a lower immune system, coughing, sneezing, allergies, etc. This issue is exhausted even more when we add double pane windows (designed to combat noise) to our homes, which essentially seals in these toxic chemicals into our rooms where we sleep at night.
There isn’t a solution to every problem, but one small step towards a solution is to select materials for your furniture that are natural, which are far less likely to cause any irritations.