52 Percent of Homeowners Plan Fall Home Improvement Projects

SEATTLE, Sept. 5, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --More than half (52 percent) of homeowners plan to make a home improvement or addition this fall, according to the Zillow Digs Fall Home Improvement Trend and Spending Survey[i], compared with 60 percent in the summer; homeowners plan to spend $1,000, which is $200 less than during the summer.

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While the percentage of homeowners planning remodels for nearly every room fell from the summer survey, homeowners will continue to focus on home office or playroom remodels in the fall.

"Fall is a perfect transition time from outdoor to indoor activities, which is resonating in home improvement plans and trends. Parents are sprucing up indoor play areas to keep the kids active and occupied, while looking for ways to update their own workspaces for the season ahead as workdays are shortened by kid pick-up and drop-off duty," noted Cynthia Nowak, Zillow Digs trend expert.

Double-duty home officesAs the line between work and home continues to blur, homeowners are looking for quiet and clean spaces where they can wrap up leftover projects from the office or work from home during those rainy fall days. Six percent of homeowners said they would work on their home offices this fall, compared with 4 percent during the summer[ii].

In addition to the survey, members of the recently formed Zillow Digs Board of Designers, which provides Zillow Digs users insight into unique and current trends in home design, shared their experiences and advice on fall remodels. For home offices, the majority are designing home office spaces for dual purposes, whether adding a daybed for napping, a desk doubling as a guest bedroom nightstand or a mini kitchen for the home office coffee pot.

Kerrie Kelly of Kerrie Kelly Design Lab in Sacramento, Calif., recommends: "If your guest room must do double duty, look for furniture that keeps the room from being too businesslike, such as an office armoire, chests, cabinets, side tables and creative storage solutions that look pretty, too. A good- looking, uncluttered space is the best remedy for the chaos of a typical office. We find many people requesting a Murphy bed situation to provide a multi-functional space."

Mara Miller of Carrier and Company Interiors Ltd. in New York City says: "As laptops and tablets become more popular we're free to use more vintage furnishings than desks customized to contain a computer. For serious home offices, we're also installing a lot of coffee bars to reduce trips to the kitchen and grazing while working from home."

Active playrooms for fallIndoor play doesn't have to just mean puzzles and tea parties. Families want play spaces that keep the little ones climbing, sliding, swinging and jumping as well as nearby areas for adults to stay active such as a workout area or pool table, according to the majority of Zillow Digs Board of Designers. Three percent of homeowners said they would work on playrooms this fall, compared with 2 percent during the summer[iii].

For playrooms, the designers generally advise creating gender-neutral spaces that everyone can enjoy, with durable, eco-friendly materials such as carpet tiles and no-VOC paint.

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52 Percent of Homeowners Plan Fall Home Improvement Projects