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

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
How much value each of the top 20 trends can add
The home improvements that add the most value

For the latest home improvement and renovation insights, check out our Rated People Home Improvement Trends Report 2023.

Cottagecore décor: rustic, white kitchen furniture with pine worktop and wall cladding

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
1	Herringbone floor	72,300,000	99,100	40,500	72,439,600
2	Outdoor kitchen	56,000,000	449,000	27,100	56,476,100
3	Living walls	47,800,000	142,000	8,100	47,950,100
4	Green kitchen	38,100,000	88,400	9,900	38,198,300
5	Home office	31,700,000	373,000	1,600	32,074,600
6	Vintage furniture	25,300,000	2,200,000	8,100	27,508,100
7	Dark kitchens	26,500,000	82,200	1,300	26,583,500
8	Neutral decor	20,400,000	1,200,000	320	21,600,320
9	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

Home office area separated with a partition wall form the living room

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

Wooden garden room with glass doors and tiled roof

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: