Homeowners use the summer months to spruce up for the new season, and search data from Houzz’s 2022 Emerging Summer Trends Report shows exactly where the interest lands. The report analyzes search insights from the platform’s community of homeowners, home professionals, and design enthusiasts, and the percentage swings are large enough to guide real buying decisions. The pattern holds at any project scale: whether you plan to design and build a home in another state or remodel a single room, the same research discipline applies, comparing what homeowners actually search for against what they end up buying. The trends below follow the report’s categories, with the search-growth numbers intact.
Outdoor Design and Maintenance
Outdoor projects lead the summer list. Searches for landscapers grew 42 percent, a sign that owners are turning to professionals for upkeep instead of tackling every bed and border themselves. Water conservation sits under the surface: searches for drought tolerant landscaping ideas doubled from the prior year. One water feature is in: searches for hot tubs on decks jumped 130 percent, a popular choice for entertaining and relaxing. Outdoor lighting follows the same arc as the lighting design trends driving indoor renovations, and the fixtures showing up inside are moving onto porches and patios.
What the outdoor search data says
| Search term | Year-over-year growth |
|---|---|
| Landscapers | +42% |
| Drought tolerant landscaping ideas | Doubled |
| Hot tubs on decks | +130% |
Water-smart landscaping
Homeowners who search for drought tolerant ideas usually end up with native plantings, drip irrigation, and mulch layers that hold moisture. The choices cut water bills and reduce maintenance, which is why they keep climbing in the data even in wetter regions. A landscape plan that starts with these searches also pairs well with rain barrels and permeable paving, so the yard handles storms instead of routing water toward the foundation.
Outdoor lighting ties the category together. Owners searching for deck upgrades pair the hot tub with string lights, path lights, and wall sconces, and the fixture count on a typical patio now matches what a living room used to carry. Plan the circuit capacity and switch locations before the concrete work starts, because adding outdoor wiring afterward means trenching and patching.
Front Door Upgrades
Front doors have grown in popularity as owners look to upgrade the first-impression spot. Metal is having a moment: homeowners are searching for iron front doors, and bold colors are in, with red and green leading the way. The front-door pattern repeats each spring in the seasonal home design trends tracked across design publications, and the durable takeaway is that the entry is the highest-value exterior upgrade on any house, because it reads from the street and sets the expectation for everything behind it.
Choosing a front door material
- Iron and steel: heavy, secure, high contrast, and needs rust protection at the base
- Fiberglass: the best insulator of the three and accepts bold paint colors
- Wood: classic warmth with refinishing needed every few years
- Aluminum-clad: low maintenance with a wood interior face
Color and hardware pairing
Red and green doors read best with matte black or aged brass hardware, and the frame and trim should contrast rather than match. Designers suggest testing the color on the door itself in morning and evening light, because south-facing entries wash out reds and enrich greens. Order the door early, since custom colors and iron fabrication add weeks to the lead time.
The front door is also a performance upgrade. A steel or fiberglass door with a full weatherstrip cuts drafts around the entry, and the lock set carries most of the door security, so a replacement is the moment to upgrade to a deadbolt with a reinforced strike plate in the same project.
Statement Lighting
Lighting can make or break a space, and the search data shows homeowners, designers, and professionals hunting for statement fixtures: extra-large chandeliers, lantern chandeliers, industrial pendant lights, and wicker pendants all grew within a 30 to 223 percent band. General lighting searches doubled, with kitchen ceiling lights, flush mounted lighting, and task lighting leading the category. The arc of home remodeling and lighting design trends for modern residential renovation confirms the pattern: a single oversized fixture sets the tone of a room faster than any other element at a similar price.
Lighting search growth at a glance
| Fixture type | Search trend |
|---|---|
| Extra-large chandeliers | Up 30 to 223% |
| Lantern chandeliers | Up 30 to 223% |
| Industrial pendant lights | Up 30 to 223% |
| Wicker pendants | Up 30 to 223% |
| Kitchen ceiling lights | Doubled |
| Flush mounted lighting | Doubled |
| Task lighting | Doubled |
Scale rules for statement fixtures
A chandelier should hang so its bottom edge sits 30 to 36 inches above a dining table, and the fixture diameter in inches should roughly equal the room width in feet plus two. A 10-foot-wide room calls for a roughly 12-inch fixture, while a 16-foot room needs about 18 inches. Layer the statement piece with dimmable task and accent lights so the room still functions when the chandelier is off.
Defining Design Styles
Homeowners are getting specific about style. Searches for midcentury modern kitchen ideas spiked 576 percent, beach style design ideas rose 143 percent, and Japandi has climbed steadily, with bathroom searches up 229 percent and kitchen searches up 104 percent. Style specificity is a building decision as much as a decorating one, because the building envelope design process determines how much of a style direction is possible: ceiling heights, window placement, and wall materials either support an open midcentury plan or fight it.
Style search growth
| Style search | Growth |
|---|---|
| Midcentury modern kitchen ideas | +576% |
| Beach style design ideas | +143% |
| Japandi bathrooms | +229% |
| Japandi kitchens | +104% |
Midcentury modern keeps its momentum
Designers, owners, and professionals are searching midcentury modern bedroom ideas and exterior ideas on top of the kitchen searches. Even single elements have become search categories: kit kat tile was up 797 percent, and boucle and curved sofa searches continue to climb. The style’s endurance comes from its geometry, which suits timber and post-and-beam construction naturally.
Japandi at a glance
Japandi blends Japanese restraint with Scandinavian warmth: low furniture, natural wood, muted earth tones, and nothing decorative without a function. The style pairs well with timber homes because it treats wood as the primary material rather than an accent.
Style searches translate into spec changes, not just paint colors. A midcentury plan wants flat or lightly vaulted ceilings and larger window openings, while Japandi spaces want narrower profiles and more wood surface, so the framing details change even when the square footage does not.
Maximizing Space and the Barndo Movement
Whether a home is small or large, finding enough space for family and life is a universal wish, and the search data shows two responses. The barn-style home has taken the lead: searches for the term barndo rose 154 percent, and barn-inspired rooms grew alongside it, with barndominium kitchen searches up 138 percent. Space-maximizing strategies, from open floor plans to built-in storage, overlap with the residential design trends reshaping home building for the next decade.
Barndo appeal
- Open, column-free interiors from post-and-beam framing
- Metal roof and siding with lower upkeep
- Flexible space that works as shop, garage, and living quarters
- A simpler exterior that lets the interior carry the design
Space-saving strategies that search well
- Open the floor plan to merge kitchen, dining, and living zones
- Build storage into stairs, benches, and window seats
- Use sliding doors instead of swing doors in tight paths
- Specify pocket doors for closets and baths
- Keep the ceiling high and the furniture low to preserve visual volume
Barndo economics explain part of the growth. Post-and-beam shells cost less per square foot than stick-framed equivalents at the same size, and the open plan lets one building serve as shop, garage, and home. Buyers searching the term are usually comparing acreage packages, not just floor plans, so the barndo trend matters to builders who control land as well as those who build on it.
Turning Seasonal Search Data into Design Decisions
Search growth is demand data, and demand data is a buying signal. The residential design trends reshaping home building in the next decade overlap heavily with this summer’s list: outdoor living, statement lighting, bold entries, and flexible space appear in both. For a homeowner planning a remodel or a builder planning a spec home, the numbers translate into a short checklist.
How to use the data
- Rank projects by search growth, not by personal taste alone
- Price the top three upgrades before committing to any of them
- Ask contractors for comparable projects in the same style
- Buy materials early when a trend is peaking, because lead times stretch
- Document the before condition of every space you touch
The seasonal numbers will shift next year, but the method will not: watch what homeowners search for, test the top ideas against a real budget, and build what still makes sense after the prices come in. That sequence turns a trends report into a renovation plan.