Healthy home: Judy Cossette helps clients with eco-friendly design

Judy Cossette, owner of Go Green Fine Interiors and GG's Home Decor, helps clients make eco-friendly and health-conscious design choices for their homes. (Photo by Terah Hoobler)

Most of us strive to have a beautiful and comfortable home, but we may want to go a step further. Our homes also need to be healthy, according to Judy Cossette, owner of Go Green Fine Interiors and GG’s Home Decor, an eco-friendly home furniture e-commerce site.

“Our interior air can be up to five times more polluted than the exterior air,” said Cossette. “Furniture can put out toxic gasses for seven years. You can improve your health and lower your carbon footprint by making better choices.”

Cossette, who loves decorating and interior design, opened an interior design and staging business in 2016. However, after earning her certification in Sustainable Interior Design, Cossette made her own home organic – a change that she said improved her health – and refocused her business. 

“When I learned how toxic our furnishings are, I knew my customers shouldn’t be buying this stuff,” Cossette said. “I have a wealth of knowledge I want to share with other people.”

As an interior designer, Cossette helps people fall in love with their home again. By listening to her clients, she says she creates their perfect home – one that is lovely, reflects their tastes and desires, and is functional. As Cossette says, people actually use the beautiful rooms she designs.

What further sets Cossette apart from other interior designers is that she makes homes eco-friendly. Her goal, lowering a home’s toxic load, can be done with simple acts like adding plants that purify the air, she said. Bigger changes include switching to organic bedding, using rugs made from natural fibers, and buying solid wood furniture that is sustainable, safe, and often treasured by a family for years. Even if the client or his/her family doesn’t keep these pieces, they can be sold or repurposed and won’t end up in a landfill, according to Cossette.

Cossette takes the lead in helping clients find the eco-friendly furnishings they like and can afford. In addition to scouring resale and consignment shops for furnishings that fit her clients’ tastes, she also has trade agreements with companies that offer sustainable furnishings.

“I make it easier for clients to go green, and I save them money,” Cossette says. “I get creative on how I source my clients’ items.”

To further ease the search for sustainable furniture, for clients and non-clients alike, Cossette recently added GG’s Home Decor to her services. The furniture featured on the site is made from eco-friendly solid wood materials that are sourced from sustainable plantations around the world.

The collection will constantly evolve, according to Cossette. In the future, she plans to sell furniture from additional companies as well as partner with artisans who make unique, handcrafted furniture.

“I want to make it easier for people to find sustainable furniture,” said Cossette. “I want the site to be the go-to place for this type of furniture.”

Even when people are determined to make their home environmentally friendly, it isn’t an all-or-nothing proposition, according to Cossette. When those who want to go green fall in love with non-sustainable furniture, they should feel free to add it to their home.

“People buy what they like,” Cossette explains. “There are beautiful pieces of furniture that are not made from solid wood, and that’s okay. Just don’t make 100% of your furniture choices toxic.”