Recycling seems to get a lot of attention nowadays, but reducing how much we use and reusing what we already have can have an even bigger positive impact on our environment. So often, we buy something for a specific purpose when we already have something that would suffice, and that’s just as wasteful as throwing something away instead of recycling it.

One of my biggest home organization headaches is my laundry room, and apparently I am not alone. I was talking with friends recently about this problem and we were joking that it should be called a “Dumping Room” or an “Etcetera Room.” We’ve all got stuff that has nothing to do with laundry in this space – whether it’s vases and candles, wrapping paper, or dog food – plus all the detergents and cleaning products you can imagine.

A designer friend was recently showing off her newly remodeled kitchen, and I was really impressed with how well-thought-out the entire space was. One thing that just made perfect sense was that everything to the left of the sink was devoted to food preparation activities, while everything to the right was devoted to cooking the food. This is exactly why you should hire a designer when you’re tackling an interior design project; they can help you in more ways than you know. Not only is my friend’s kitchen much more efficient than it was, but it’s far less cluttered and far more organized than it was before!

One family I know decorates their kitchen in a theme for each family member’s birthday. Another has a special birthday plate and chair slipcover that are used on each person’s birthday. In my house, we play “hot and cold” until the birthday girl or guy finds the gift.

I’ve learned that the hard way over years of home improvement and interior design projects that it’s easy to make costly furniture-buying mistakes! Here are a few things I’ve learned about shopping for furniture – I hope they’ll help you shop smarter:

1. Don’t just make a spur-of-the-moment furniture purchase, especially for an expensive item. Ask if the retailer will allow you to take that sofa you love out “on approval.” Usually, you have to leave a credit card number or deposit, but you’ll be able to take the sofa home to see how it looks in your living room…and find out if it’s comfortable for you.

2. Ask if the seller has a “restock fee.” Let’s say you’ve bought a $500 chair, but you get it home and hate it. Many retailers will accept the return, but they’ll charge you a 10% restocking fee to cover their time, effort, etc.

• Just because you CAN take a 20-minute shower doesn’t mean you SHOULD, when one person in five across the world has no access to safe drinking water.

• Just because you CAN buy bottled water doesn’t mean you SHOULD, when science is finding that the chemicals in some types of plastics are likely making us sick.

• Just because you CAN buy a cup of gourmet coffee in a paper cup complete with cardboard sleeve to keep your hands cool doesn’t mean you SHOULD, when the amount of trash we’re sending to landfills has DOUBLED since 1960.

• Just because you CAN leave the lights on, the television blaring, and all of your electronics on “power-save” mode doesn’t mean you SHOULD, when the U.S. per capita energy consumption is nearly 500 times greater than the per capita consumption in Afghanistan and countless other countries.