Local home remodelers report that the spring and summer was a busy period. Cornerstone Building and Design in Framingham recently added a kitchen to this Westwood home.

Homeowners across the country are taking the adage “your home is your castle” to heart, spending an estimated $125 billion on home improvements and repairs during the past four quarters, according to recent research.

The National Association of Home Builders recently reported that professional remodeling activity kept up a brisk pace during the second quarter of the year. Remodeling activity in Massachusetts, where the housing stock is older and new housing construction generally lags behind other states, also has been robust, according to local professional remodelers.

“In my experience, the remodeling industry has been pretty steady, even with the dips in the economy,” said Chuck Hall, chairman of the Builders Association of Greater Boston Remodelers’ Council.

Hall, who owns Cornerstone Building and Design in Framingham, said as home prices have continued to escalate in recent years homeowners have been willing to improve their properties, viewing the cost of such projects as a wise investment.

And Hall thinks that many Americans may still be experiencing the “nesting” phenomenon that emerged in the months following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Reluctant to travel after the attacks and staying close to home instead of vacationing at faraway destinations, many homeowners’ nesting instinct kicked in and they focused a considerable amount of time and resources improving their residences, some experts contend.

“People were spending a lot of their disposable income on their homes rather than vacationing,” said Hall.

According to the Remodeling Activity Indicator [RAI] devised by Harvard University’s Joint Center of Housing Studies, spending on home improvements increased 4 percent during this year’s second quarter compared to the same period in 2003.

Job growth and increasing payrolls have helped homeowners undertake more remodeling projects, explained the Joint Center’s Director Nicolas P. Retisnas in a press release announcing the RAI.

Low interest rates, which have made it easier and cheaper to borrow money, also have boosted the remodeling industry, according to Peter Fenton, who owns a remodeling business in Wellesley.

The concentration of high-end homes in some of Boston’s suburban communities has also generated business for professional remodelers. “The real estate market has been so strong that house prices now are at an all-time high,” said Fenton. “People who can afford to pay $1 million or more for a house can probably afford to spend another $200,000 for renovations.”

Remodeling is strong in Greater Boston, because unlike other parts of the country where buildable land is plentiful and new housing construction is more frequent, homeowners are buying and living in older homes that they have to upgrade or expand as their lifestyles change, explained Fenton.

Fenton’s company is in the process of finishing a $1.3 million remodeling project that has taken about two years. The average size and scope of the projects that Fenton’s company has completed has grown over the last several years from between $50,000 and $100,000 to between $200,000 and $300,000 per job.

Projects that Fenton’s company has undertaken vary. Fenton, who has been in the remodeling business for more than 17 years, said he had a lot of bathroom remodeling projects last summer, while this spring he received many calls from homeowners seeking to add space to their homes. In recent months, dozens of consumers have called him to complete more minor jobs like repairing trim and wood gutters.

Remodeling activity nationwide dipped slightly during the second quarter compared to the first quarter of the year, according to the NAHB Remodeling Market Index. But a year-to-year comparison showed that second-quarter results fall in line with the pace set in 2003. The Remodeling Market Index, or RMI, is based on a quarterly survey of professional remodelers.

One index gauges current market conditions and is based on remodelers’ reports of major and minor additions and alterations, maintenance work and repairs. The second index gauges expectations for the future, based on remodelers’ reports of their calls for bids, amount of work committed for the next three months, job backlogs and appointments for proposals.

The index measuring current market conditions stood at 53.5 compared to 53.6 the prior year. The index gauging future expectations for remodeling moved climbed one point, from 54.8 in 2003 to 55.8 this year. Any RMI over 50 indicates that the market is healthy, according to NAHB leaders. Regionally, the Northeast posted the highest growth in both current and future expectations for remodeling, rising from 52.1 to 58.3 and 55.6 to 61.4 respectively.

With the economy barely sputtering along more than year ago, remodeling showed signs of slowing down toward the end of 2002. Industry leaders didn’t anticipate an instant recovery in 2003, and many local builders were reporting in the early part of last year that they were dealing with much smaller projects instead of large-scale remodeling and room additions.

But activity picked up in the spring and summer of last year for many local remodelers as consumer confidence improved and the economy started recovering.

John DeShazo of FBN Construction in Boston’s Hyde Park said his company was busy during the spring, summer and has projects “booked” into January. DeShazo’s company, which primarily serves higher-end customers, has done everything from whole house remodeling projects to major kitchen and bathrooms updates.

While DeShazo said there “seems to be plethora of good-sized jobs,” he said the million-dollar-plus renovation projects that were more common about three years ago are not as common.

But DeShazo said the slight increase in interest rates has “a tendency to create an urgency” and pushes people to undertake renovations. Consumers are selecting higher-end finishes and appliances and a new trend appears to be emerging where homeowners are focusing on improving garages, laundry rooms and outdoor living spaces.

Fenton, the remodeler who serves Wellesley and other communities west of Boston, doesn’t anticipate a slowdown in activity anytime soon “unless the economy bombs across the board and interest rates rise,” he said.

Aglaia Pikounis can be reached at apikounis@thewarrengroup.com.