How to boost your home’s value by £100K

For insights on the biggest trends in renovation and home improvement, take a look at the Rated People Home Improvement Trends Report 2022

Whether you’re looking to sell, or you’re just keen to update your home, we’ve discovered this year’s biggest home improvement trends and how much value they can add to your home. 

We analysed 800,000 home improvement jobs posted on Rated People – from new kitchens to loft conversions and painting, and dived into TikTok, Instagram and Google data to uncover 2022’s top trends.

We then spoke to thousands of potential homebuyers about which adaptations and design features they’re looking for the most from their next home and how much extra they’d be willing to pay for each one.  

Our research shows if you implemented all 20 of this year’s biggest home improvement trends on TikTok and Instagram, you could increase the value of your home by £105,000!

Read on for:

2022’s biggest home improvement trends 

Whilst not every interior design trend is everyone’s cup of tea (we’re looking at you foam mirrors!), TikTok and Instagram are great places to find inspiration.

We looked at hundreds of home improvement trends and created a popularity score for each one by combining the total views on TikTok, with the number of hashtags on Instagram, and the annual UK search volume on Google. We then ranked the trends to reveal the top 20 for 2022.

Natural materials, neutral colour palettes and vintage charm are key trends, with living walls, pampas grass décor, flagstone floors and Cottagecore all featuring in the top 20 biggest trends for 2022. But bold is still popular, with dark kitchens, pink bathrooms, maximalism, and colour blocking also making the top 20 list.

Home office with white walls and herringbone floor

This year’s most popular home improvement trend is Herringbone floors – videos that showcase the flooring have been watched a staggering 72.3 million times on TikTok! There are almost 100,000 Instagram posts about the trend and people have googled ‘herringbone floor’ 40,000 times in the UK over the last year.  

Outdoor entertaining area with wooden decking, garden furniture, dining table and chairs

Alfresco dining is also a big trend on TikTok, with videos of outdoor kitchens clocking up an impressive 56 million views. The trend also boasts around 450,000 Instagram posts with people sharing their outside dining set ups.

When it comes to kitchens inside the home, green kitchens and dark kitchens are some of the trends taking TikTok by storm. Views for green kitchens have topped 38 million on TikTok and they’ve received almost 10,000 annual searches on Google.

Modern, dark kitchen with light stone worktop.

Whilst there are many shades of green to choose from, dark kitchens are also still proving popular. Dark shades can be a punchy design feature, giving you a more interesting focal point within the home, and they’re perfect for making lighter worktops really stand out.  

Both Grandmillennial décor and Cottagecore décor also feature in the list. Grandmillennial style sees the likes of Laura Ashley prints, embroidered linens and quirky ruffles making a comeback, and it’s had over 3.8 million views on TikTok alone. Cottagecore decor, a rustic romantic trend, has had over 2.8 million Instagram posts and almost a million TikTok views.

2022’s top 20 home improvement trends:

Rank  Trend  TikTok views  Instagram posts  Search volume – annual UK   Overall popularity score 
Herringbone floor  72,300,000  99,100  40,500  72,439,600 
Outdoor kitchen   56,000,000  449,000  27,100  56,476,100 
Living walls  47,800,000  142,000  8,100  47,950,100 
Green kitchen   38,100,000  88,400  9,900  38,198,300 
Home office 31,700,000  373,000  1,600  32,074,600 
Vintage furniture   25,300,000  2,200,000  8,100  27,508,100 
Dark kitchens  26,500,000  82,200  1,300  26,583,500 
Neutral decor  20,400,000  1,200,000  320  21,600,320 
Pampas grass decor  21,200,000  121,000  18,100  21,339,100 
10  Wall panelling  18,000,000  76,200  110,000  18,186,200 
11  Maximalism  18,000,000  84,400  6,600  18,091,000 
12  Flagstone floor  16,300,000  93,200  2,900  16,396,100 
13  Painted arches   15,100,000  1,000  210  15,101,210 
14  Japandi decor   12,400,000  134,000  2,900  12,536,900 
15  Colour blocking   9,300,000  137,000  3,600  9,440,600 
16  Green walls  4,700,000  106,000  5,400  4,811,400 
17  Kitchen pantry  4,300,000  22,700  2,400  4,325,100 
18  Grandmillennial decor  3,800,000  93,300  20  3,893,320 
19  Cottagecore decor  946,100  2,800,000  33,100  3,779,200 
20  Pink bathrooms  3,300,000  39,100  3,600  3,342,700 

How much value the top 20 trends can add to your home

Six in 10 homeowners are planning to recreate at least one of the top 20 trends this year, and if you do all 20, you could increase your home’s value by £105,046!

With so many of us now working from home, the study shows a dedicated home office space can add almost £6,500 to your home’s value.

In second and third place it’s all about the kitchen – a kitchen pantry will add almost £6,000 of value to your selling price and an outdoor kitchen could increase your home’s value by around £5,700.

The rest of the top 10 trends that will increase the value of your home the most are related to neutral palettes and natural materials. Vintage furniture, neutral décor and flagstone flooring can all bump up your sale’s figure by over £5,500. And herringbone flooring, Cottagecore décor and Grandmillennial décor can increase your home’s value by around £5,400.

How much value 2022’s most popular home improvement trends can add to your home:

Rank Trend Value increase
1 Home office £6,368
2 Kitchen pantry £5,757
3 Outdoor kitchen £5,683
4 Vintage furniture £5,643
5 Neutral decor £5,528
6 Flagstone floor £5,527
7 Herringbone floor £5,485
8 Cottagecore decor £5,406
9 Grandmillennial decor £5,398
10 Maximalism £5,394
11 Green kitchen £5,344
12 Living walls £5,263
13 Wall panelling £5,114
14 Japandi decor £4,936
15 Dark kitchen £4,909
16 Colour blocking £4,776
17 Painted arches £4,723
18 Green walls £4,691
19 Pampas grass decor £4,603
20 Pink bathrooms £4,498

The home improvements that add the most value to your property in 2022

Alongside this year’s biggest trends, our research also looked into the home improvements that are now the most attractive to buyers in general. Buyers now want their new home to suit new ways of living, and it looks like having more space, multi-functional rooms, and areas for working out and entertaining are now more desirable.

Topping the list is a self-contained annex, adding an impressive £17,003 to the value of a property, as buyers look for those extra pockets of space around the home. You could also achieve this by converting existing rooms or a garage, or by building an extension or garden room.

Tudor style house with large conservatory

Another space-adding improvement is a new orangery or conservatory – this was the fourth most wanted feature in the list, adding over £13,500 to the value of a property.

Having a home gym can add almost £12,000 onto your home’s value. An outdoor entertaining area can increase the value of your home by £11,750 and an outdoor kitchen adds on around £11,500.

If this has inspired you and you’d like to make some changes to your home, you can find trusted local tradespeople right here on Rated People – from bathroom fitters and electricians, to builders and plasters and renderers.

The top 20 value adding home improvements: 

  1. Self-contained annex – £17,003 
  2. New roof – £15,407 
  3. Newly renovated kitchen – £13,877 
  4. New orangery/ conservatory – £13,611 
  5. New windows throughout – £12,784 
  6. Separate kitchen/diner and lounge – £12,379 
  7. Large open plan space – £12,103 
  8. Home gym – £11,927 
  9. Newly renovated bathroom – £11,906 
  10. En-suite bathroom – £11,817 
  11. Outdoor entertaining area – £11,757 
  12. Landscaped garden – £11,741 
  13. Home office room, in the house – £11,706 
  14. New driveway – £11,706 
  15. Garden office room – £11,648 
  16. Outdoor kitchen – £11,549 
  17. New porch – £11,015 
  18. Downstairs toilet – £11,000 
  19. New wooden flooring throughout – £10,896 
  20. New stone/tiled flooring – £10,876 

For more of this year’s home improvement trends, check out the full 2022 Home Improvement Trends Report.