New research reveals that the master bedroom is the room in our homes which gives us the best value for money, trumping both the kitchen and the living room.
Price comparison website CompareTheMarket.com, has shared with Moving Home Advice the results of their new study which saw them compare the average amount of money we spend on each room of our home with the average amount of time we spend in each room. In doing so, they have revealed which rooms give us the best value for money and which we are spending more on than we probably should.
The research shows that, over the past 5 years, homeowners have spent an average of £10,000+ renovating and decorating their homes.
Most of this money is spent on the kitchen, then the living room, and then the attic. The latter is in the list due to the number of people choosing to extend upwards in their homes because lateral space is increasingly hard to come by.
Where homeowners spend their money:
- Kitchen (£458.73)
- Living Room (£357.37)
- Loft/Attic (£340.32)
- Bathroom (£333.95)
- Master Bedroom (£308.51)
- Office/study (£293.43)
Despite spending the most money on the kitchen, when looking at how much time we spend in each room of the home, it doesn’t even crack the Top 3.
Where homeowners spend most of their time:
- Master Bedroom – 6.8 hours per day, 2,482 hours per year
- Living room – 4.4 hours per day, 1,606 hours per year
- Office/study – 3.3 hours per day, 1,204.5 hours per year
- Kitchen/Dining Room – 2.1 hours per day, 766.5 hours per year
- Loft/attic – 1.8 hours per day, 657 hours per year
- Bathroom 1.2 hours per day, 438 hours per year
Value for Money, awake and asleep
So, while we spend most of our money on the kitchen, we only spend an average of 2 hours a day using it. The living room appears second on both lists, suggesting that the money spent there is well-justified.
The master bedroom, however, appears 5th on the list of where we spend the most money and 1st on the list of where we spend the most time.
This means we’re getting maximum value for money from our bedrooms, spending a little in return for a lot. But one does, of course, have to question whether the hours we spend asleep should be counted in this research.
If we’re only counting waking hours, it’s the office which appears to be the most value-for-money space in the home. We’re spending well over 1,000 hours each year in there while spending less than £300 on its décor.
