It’s been almost a year since I started on my Live LAGOM journey with IKEA, and through their nifty ideas I’ve been able to reduce my environmental impact around my home.
I’m delighted to say that I’ve saved on heat, energy, and food through their range of eco-friendly items and inspiration. Here’s everything I’ve tried from the IKEA Live LAGOM range:
While I was set these as special challenges to try out and review, IKEA has now extended its Live LAGOM inspiration into a whole host of different ideas that everyone can try. Their FREE Live LAGOM ideas are full of eco-friendly living inspiration that you can do at home, whenever you have a spare tin can or tea towel lying around.
In fact, you may have already spotted them hanging around your local IKEA store, or perhaps seen them online. Well, I was set the final challenge of trying a few of these out, and here are the results…
Repurposing tin cans
The idea of repurposing tins was probably my favourite among the bunch of free Live LAGOM ideas, as I love to cook and tend to recycle a lot of tin cans every week.
Going by the zero waste mantra, The 5 R’s, it’s great to see IKEA encouraging more reusing before recycling too.
From my above photos, I actually took this challenge one step further, and painted an old tin pot we had lying around. Painting it was easy – I used leftover indoor wall paint to paint the base white, left that to dry, and then returned to paint on the grey blob and black lines with oil paint.
I’m not great when it comes to precise painting, which is why I went for this abstract pattern, but I’m actually really happy with the result.
Plus, the upcycled pot become the perfect home to an old IKEA plant we bought a few years ago!
Making a DIY trellis
The second upcycling idea I really liked was IKEA’s DIY guide to making a trellis. While I took up growing indoor plants this year, my boyfriend has been busy in the garden planting seeds – tomatoes, strawberries, cucumber, beans, and even a goji plant!
Amazingly, IKEA and my green-fingered boyfriend thought alike, as this year he made a trellis out of upcycled wood we found at the bottom of the garden for the runner beans! It took less than a day for the beans to grasp onto the oddly shaped wooden poles, and they have been growing well ever since!
Next time we need a trellis, I’ll be sure to see what cutlery we’ve got hanging around too – it’s super easy to tie them together with twine and they look pretty too!
Upcycling empty glass jars
The third idea I’ve completed is to upcycle glass jars. This one is pretty easy too (you can see I like the easy ones!) and IKEA had two pretty novel ideas when it came to repurposing glass jars: either as storage jars, or as grow jars. Both encourage an active interest in zero waste and sustainability, so I’m a big fan!
I’ve technically already completed this challenge, as I store my bath salts in a glass jar, and store my DIY coffee scrub in a glass jar too. They’re so handy, and it’s kept me from having to buy purpose-made jars too. Gotta love an idea that saves the world and saves some pennies!
Want more Live LAGOM inspiration?
That’s just three of the many ideas that IKEA has put together for their Live LAGOM inspiration! Why not try…
- Creating a plant pot out of a plastic bottle?
- Using those big blue IKEA bags for a picnic blanket?
- Creating a patchwork curtain from tea towels?
- Using an old cake tray for a seed tray?
Head on over to the Live LAGOM community for all those guides, as well as inspiration from fellow Live LAGOMers, and information on how you can make eco changes around your home.
I had the best time trying out these challenges, and I’ve formed so many new good habits around our house too. The fact that our heating bill didn’t change from summer to winter last year was the biggest achievement that came out of this project, and I hope it will inspire you to reduce your impact too!
This post is sponsored by IKEA UK. All views and opinions expressed remain my own.
