I started writing about software for home design because, well, I’m a geek and love designing things. Also because it just made sense to write about software that touches on the subject of home design. For me, I’ve always been fascinated by how things work and can effectively be used for other things than what they were originally designed for. It all ends up back where it should be at the end… You might be asking yourself, “What does this have to do with building my website? Nothing! But don’t stop reading!
Okay, Let me give a bit sneak peak on some of the well to do “best software for home design”, they are actually the best. Here’s why!
Best Overall: SketchUp Pro
With its expansive feature set, advanced 3D modeling tools and online forums having everything from tutorials to discussions, SketchUp Pro is unquestionably the best home design software out there.
SketchUp Pro lets you effortlessly design highly accurate 3D models of homes (and other similar structures), all using simple click-and-release mouse actions. Just choose from one of the many preloaded templates, select a view and you’re ready to go. In addition to 3D models, you can also create plans, elevations, details, title blocks and a lot more, using the “LayOut” tool. It’s also great for making presentation documents, supporting everything from drafting to vector illustrations. The program makes it easy to turn models into animated walkthroughs and flyovers that explain every detail.
You can also add elements such as line work, textures and shadows to 2D documents. Then there are the dimensioning tools, which snap to the edges of models and allow you to quickly set format, scale and precision level of displayed measurements. From architects and builders to engineers and urban planners, SketchUp can be used by everyone. The created design documents can be exported as PDFs, images and CAD files.
One of the most impressive features of SketchUp Pro is 3D Warehouse, a huge library of free 3D models. You can choose from a vast array of 3D objects, and use them in your home’s design.https://68914d11a813c7581a491ddd4346112b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Best for DIY Home Enthusiasts: Home Designer Professional
Buy on Homedesignersoftware.com
Don’t want to bother hiring an architect and would rather design your perfect home yourself? Look no further than Home Designer Pro, the best thing for DIY home enthusiasts.
Coming from the stable of Chief Architect, Home Designer Pro offers a truckload of tools for interior design, remodeling, outdoor living and cost estimation. These have commonly accepted defaults for most building practices, and thus make creating your own project a cakewalk. Whether you want to create a single room or an entire house, Home Designer Pro can do it all. It lets you add cabinets, place furniture and even paint walls.
The software has an extensive library of 3D architecture objects that can be added to designs. You can rotate symbols in different planes, and choose to have the CAD block refresh automatically as objects are modified. It’s possible to set heights by absolute or relative positions, and the program lets you reference adjacent floors for designing multi-tiered decks. You can customize room labels, edit multiple elements (e.g. all cabinets) together with one command, as well as create architectural blocks that can be moved as one and stored in the library. Other features include the ability to rotate and reverse plans, custom watermarks, live layout views and labeled callouts.
Home Designer Pro lets you backup the entire plan for easy sharing, set sun and shadow controls, record walkthroughs and more. There is a lot of CAD functionality thrown into the mix, too.Home Designer Pro (2021) Reviewhttps://68914d11a813c7581a491ddd4346112b.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Best for Ease Of Use: Sweet Home 3D
Most of the home design programs are quite complicated and have a bit of a learning curve. That said, there are some that are fairly easy to use like Sweet Home 3D and it’s free.
Using Sweet Home 3D, you can create straight, round or sloping walls with precise dimensions, with just your mouse and keyboard. The software lets you insert doors and windows in walls by simply dragging them in the plan. You can add furniture to your model using an extensive, searchable catalog, which is organized by categories such as kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. For each added element (e.g. wall, floor), it’s possible to change the color, texture, size, thickness, location and orientation.
While designing the home in 3D, you can simultaneously view it in 3D from an aerial point of view, or navigate from a virtual visitor point of view. Sweet Home 3D lets you annotate the plan with room areas, dimension lines, texts and arrows. The program can even create photorealistic images and videos with its ability to customize the lights. You can import existing home blueprints to add upon them, and export created designs as PDFs and vector images.
The features of Sweet Home 3D can be enhanced using a variety of plug-ins. The program runs on Windows, macOS, Linux and Solaris.Sweet Home 3D Review
Best Budget: Total 3D Home, Landscape & Deck Premium Suite
Teeming with options, the Home, Landscape & Deck Premium Suite software from Total 3D offers nearly boundless room for creativity while designing rooms and gardens, all for just $29.99. You can upload your own sketches of your dream home or choose from 14,000 samples to get your planning started. To see how your own furniture would look in different designs, you can import digital images of your current pieces and textiles or utilize a catalog of 20,000 brand-name products. Visualize nearly any possibility with custom windows, doors, floors, carpets, roofs, appliances, paint colors, and wallpaper. A how-to video library offers step-by-step instructions for navigating the software, and over 2,500 photos of homes and landscapes can provide inspiration or guidance. Compared to other programs that can cost hundred of dollars, this program has a lot to offer for a fraction of the price.
Best Online: Space Designer 3D
If you think only desktop programs are great for home design, you couldn’t be more wrong. Space Designer 3D is a web-based app that lets you plan and visualize your ideal home, using just your Web browser.
Getting started with Space Designer 3D is a walk in the park, and all you need is an account. The app lets you draw floor plans from basements to the roofs, and you can customize your interior design with more than 5,000 different furniture and materials, suitable for both residential and commercial use. The Web app makes it simple to visualize your created project in real-time, both in 2D and 3D. Space Designer 3D can simulate natural lighting realistically, depending upon the GPS coordinates and time of the day. Its rendering engine can transform 3D objects into photorealistic images with just a click, and levels are editable independently through the 2D floor plan visualization. It’s possible to have multiple options for the design of the floor plan or interiors, which is why Space Designer 3D includes different versions of a single project, with the ability to quickly switch between multiple designs.
Space Designer 3D offers multiple plans, and you can choose the one that best suits your (or your organization’s) needs.
Roomstyler
Roomstyler is a free, online interior design app created by Floorplanner. Its primary function is to allow brands to showcase how their products will look in any floor plan design. We chose it as the best free option since it allows users to create simple floor plans using video tutorials and a library of thousands of objects, all for free.
Roomstyler is probably one of the easiest to use of all the interior design platforms we reviewed. Users simply drag and drop an existing room shape and pull it to any size, shape, and dimension. Doors and windows can be added with ease and textures can be changed with a click using a simple paintbrush tool.
Roomstyler’s best feature, however, is a library of branded furniture and fixture choices that can be dropped into any floor plan. Any items added to a room are also added to a list, making it easy to view the details of any item and create a shopping list.
While Roomstyler lacks a true 3D viewing mode or walkthrough, It does let users create a 3D rendered “photo” of a room to see how a 2D design will look in 3D. Roomstyler also offers no local save or export options, but users can add their designs to the online Roomstyler community.
Virtual Architect Ultimate Home Design
Virtual Architect Ultimate Home with Landscaping and Decks Design gained popularity when it was marketed as HGTV Ultimate Home Design through the HGTV network. Since its name change, the software has added many more features and is popular among design pros as well as beginners. We chose it as the best overall since it is easy to use thanks to its drag-and-drop design wizards and a huge library of premade household and landscape objects.
Virtual Architect makes it easy to get started by importing home photos or floor plans or picking one of the customizable floorplan templates. The software’s best feature is its design wizards that walk users through creating stunning 3D renderings of kitchens, bathrooms, decks, staircases, and more.
Virtual Architect features a huge library of objects, including brand-name furniture and appliances, that can be customized with any color or texture and dropped into place. The library even contains over 7,500 plants with lighting and watering requirements useful for landscape designers.
The software also offers other useful tools for home design, a blueprint generator, a materials list, 3D virtual tours, and day and night lighting conditions.
Virtual Architect is available as a download for Windows computers only and costs $99.99.
RUNNER-UP, BEST OVERALLSketchUp
SketchUp was developed in 2000 to make 3D modeling easy and fun to learn. It’s commonly used by architects, interior designers, landscape architects, and civil and mechanical engineers. We chose it as our runner-up because it’s easy to learn, has an intuitive interface, and offers a free web-based trial version to help users learn the basics of 3D modeling.
SketchUp offers three paid versions of its web and desktop software: Shop, Pro, and Studio. SketchUp Pro is best suited to interior designers and lets users created scaled drawing sets in 2D and plan and design accurate 3D models. Users can easily turn 3D models into 2D presentations and offer clients virtual walkthroughs by integrating with VR applications like Oculus and Microsoft HoloLens.
Because SketchUp is web-based, it can be used on both Windows and Mac computers from anywhere and at any time. Users can import and export multiple graphic file types, view 3D models on mobile devices, and enjoy unlimited cloud storage for project sharing and collaboration.
SketchUp Pro costs $299 per year and comes with a 30-day free trial. Users can also play around with SketchUp Free, a no-cost web-based version that offers user-generated and manufacturer-produced models that can be viewed on a mobile device. SketchUp Free also comes with 10GB of online storage.
BEST FOR BEGINNERSEasyhome Homestyler
Homestyler was originally created in 2009 by Autodesk, the makers of 3D software AutoCAD, REVIT, and 3ds Max. It was sold in 2017 and now offers best-in-class design tools. We chose it as the best for beginners because it’s extremely simple to use, offers a large library of brand-name furniture and fixtures, and is completely free.
Like many interior design software, Homestyler lets users start by importing an existing floor plan image or starting from scratch. An intuitive floor plan builder makes it easy to create 2D floor plans and view them in 3D with just a click. Users can then select name-brand furniture and fixtures from a library and drop them into the floor plan.
Users looking for inspiration can also view a gallery of designs created by millions of Homestyler users. They can also add their designs to the gallery or share them with others on social media. Finally, users can snap a picture of any real room with the Homestyler app and decorate it with 3D objects from the software’s library.
Homestyler offers a free plan and allows users to earn “points” that unlock advanced features like HD panoramas and aerial renderings. If you wish to skip the “point” earning, you can also subscribe to the “pro” plan for $29.90 per month which includes 4k rendering, 12k panorama, and video rendering. There’s also a “master” plan for $69.90 which includes all the features in the pro plan with a higher limit on video rendering time.
Conclusion
When you design your home, there are many considerations that are made to make the process as smooth as possible. However, things can go wrong along the way. That’s why you need to find trustworthy software to make sure your home design process is flawless.