Where’s the improvement? In the other room

A survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,000 consumers conducted by San Francisco-based research firm MarketTools suggests that their next home improvement project will most likely take place in some room other than the kitchen or bathroom.


Almost a third of future projects were described as “other room” in the study, conducted July 8 to 10 using MarketTools ZoomPanel of opted-in consumers. 


According to MarketTools’ VP client development Mark Delaney, the bedroom and den projects benefit from their low-cost barriers. Declining home values probably also factor in the results, he said. 


“While the timing of the study — June 2011 — favored ‘yard,’ it’s interesting to note that smaller improvments to rooms such as dens and bedrooms seem to be the most active,” Delaney said.


Improvements to the house exterior ranked fifth among the five home improvement areas in the survey.