New research by the Halifax has shown 58% of people polled undertaking home improvements over the past 12 months. That's a 12% increase on the previous year.

The majority of people did so to update or modernise their home (54%) or to improve the look and design of it (50%). Some 34% say they did it to improve their standard of living, while 26% were forced to improve their home to undertake essential repairs. 25% of people carried out improvements to increase the value of their property - a significant increase on the 7% last year.

Meanwhile, there are signs of a raised awareness of the impact of home improvements in terms of energy efficiency - almost a fifth (17%) stating reducing fuel bills as a reason for doing their improvements - up from just 4% last year.

Redecorating is still the nation's most popular home improvement, however, with 66% choosing to revamp their homes with a new coat of paint and wallpaper. Garden improvements remain popular too, moving up the popularity ranks to second place, with 41% of people choosing make improvements in this area in the past 12 months.

The room people would most like to change is the kitchen. This is regularly highlighted as an area people would like to improve, but rarely appears in the top three most commonly conducted improvements. It may be that restricting factors such as finances or limited ability are preventing people from undertaking this task.

62% of respondents named cost as the thing most likely to prevent or deter them from undertaking home improvements. Of the 58% of respondents who carried out improvements to their home within the last 12 months, 51% spent up to £2,500, 33% spent between £2,500-10,000 and 11% spent over £10,000.

59% of respondents are planning to make home improvements over the next year. 55% plan to spend up to £5,000, while 27% plan to spend between £5,001 and £40,000.

The most active age groups will be the 35-44 year olds (74%) and the 25-34 age group (71%), which are planning improvements within the next year. And the trend of refreshing a property's image is set to continue over the next 12 months with redecorating remaining the most popular choice (64%) followed by garden improvements (35%).

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