I am using the student version of Chief Architect. They also make these if you aren't drawing your own house plans:

Better Homes and Gardens Interior Designer by Chief Architect

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 7.0 by Chief Architect

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Deluxe by Chief Architect

What I like about mine is most everything. I like that I can 3D all of the rooms to really get an idea of what the house will look like. So far it's been right on. I like that I can go to right where I want to anywhere in the house and look at it and work on it. I like that I can put furniture, pictures, lighting, paint, tile, hardwood, carpet, etc. so I can see how I want my house to be. It really is very helpful. When I decide on a material choice, like my kitchen counters, it's extremely helpful to put other material choices in (like flooring) to see how well I like them together.

I drew our house from the ground up in Chief Architect. I'm assuming that one of these other software programs will come close since they're made by the same company. Probably the Deluxe will be the closest. I liked being able to decide on walls (height/length/width), window sizes/heights and styles, door placement and type, archways, and on and on and on. You can put in your cabinetry, wood color, and sinks. You can put in crown moulding, chair rails, and on and on. I didn't know anything about CAD programs when I taught myself how to use this. I wasn't good enough on it to do all of my plans for permitting. But I was good enough to do the floor plan and the electrical and then have a drafter clean up my floor plan lines and finish it all off for permitting. To get an idea of what it's capable of, you can look at my rendered pictures here:

http://s187.photobucket.com/albums/x133/callmekc4/Rendered%20House%20Pics/

You will see where some of my stuff doesn't line up quite right because in my original files I just added the detail instead of putting it in my final floor plan, etc. since I would find that too distracting for the build itself. I have changed some things for my house since these rendered pictures. But they will give you an idea of what can be done.

Good luck in your search.

I bought the Punch software. At first I played with it a ton but haven't looked at it again in months. I never totally mastered it and couldn't figure out a ceiling or the floors really well. I don't know that I tried really hard either though.

I started out with the Punch! 5-in-1 and then upgraded to Punch! Professional 3000. I had never used any sort of CAD program before and the 5-in-1 was pretty easy to learn but eventually it just had too many limitations for me to design the house I had in mind (for example, it wouldn't let me design the kind of roof I wanted.)

Punch 3000 is whole lot more versatile but I think it would have been overwhelmingly hard for me to learn so I'm glad I got the 5-in-1 first.

The thing I didn't like about Punch 3000 was that my computer's memory appeared to be inadequate for the size and complexity of the house I wanted to build. As my plans got more detailed, the program became so slow at doing the 3D renderings that I finally gave up on looking at them at all. Fortunately, by that time, I had developed a really good "mind's eye" and could picture my design in my head without seeing the 3D.

It bugged me not to be able to show things to my husband in 3D tho because to him floor plans are just "lots of little boxes" that mean nothing. :-) I got around rendering limitations to a certain extent by creating separate files that each held pieces of the house. Eg, one file had all the exterior walls and porches and decks and windows, etc. but nothing at all in the interior. Another file had the Kitchen in full detail plus the part of the Great Room (in very low detail) that will be visible from the kitchen. A third had only the Master bedroom and master bath. A fourth had the Great Room with fireplace and bookcases, etc. plus just the part of the kitchen that will be visible from the Great Room. As I said tho, I think the problem was really with my computer's lack of memory rather than anything inherent in the Punch program.

Punch will let you add paint colors, tile, carpeting, lighting, furniture, and even landscaping to your 3D renderings. Punch also allows you to download additional "textures" from other sources if you want a tile or carpeting color or whatever that is not already in its library. There are no directions for doing this with the program but there is an excellent Punch User's group website that explains how to do it. The Punch User's group also has a lot of additional "furniture" created by users that you can download if the stuff in the library isn't sufficient. Or, you can use the "furniture builder" to create your own although I found this rather difficult in part because it is set up to work in units of feet instead of inches so I was constantly having to pull up a calculator to translate 31 inches into feet. (The funny thing is that the main program works in inches instead of feet which seems bass ackwords since, if you're like me, you think of room sizes in feet and furniture sizes in inches.

Both programs also allow you to design the electrical plan, the foundation, the HV/AC plan, etc. You can do elevations and cutaway views and, with Punch 3000, you can even see a 3D rendering of the framing.

It was a lot of fun to use and certainly helped me to decide what I really wanted my new home to look like. I did hire a draftsman to do my final drawings for permitting purpose but he did not make any real changes to my plans and ultimately, I can't see a whole lot of difference between his drawings and the ones rendered by Punch.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for all of your suggestions - I will check them all out. I hadn't heard of Punch before. Now I'm really curious to read more about it.
kcthatsme - Those pics you posted from your software are so great. Ironically after I posted this, we got an email on our home computer from amazon.com saying that my husband bought me the BHG Deluxe version. He's not very good at hiding presents huh? - too funny!

Oh, that was a nice thing for him to do for you! :)

I am figuring Punch out right now ~ but I'm having a devil of a time with it.

Maybe I will give it another try.

Barbara

mcfromct - That is cute about your husband's gift. ;-) Maybe he didn't notice where Amazon states that it will send a confirmation email. Or maybe he wanted you to know so you wouldn't go out and buy the same thing yourself. Anyway, good luck! I hope you will be happy with the software and that you will be able to design with it the way you'd like.

I have Punch and the Better Homes and Garden Home Design Suite. H&G is MUCH better and easier to use than Punch! I spent over a month trying to get a basic outline of my house plan with Punch before I gave up and bought H&G. In part of one afternoon with H&G I had the plan entered, rooms laid out and was starting to put in wall colors and floor textures.

I'd offer to give someone my copy of Punch, but I don't believe in torture. ;-)

I have both the H&G and the Punch Super Home suite, but the program that I find myself using most often is a real cheapie.

I found the Broaderbund 3D home architect on sale at staples office supply for $10. I find it is the easiest to use, will give full print dimensions and it will print a full size construction print on a normal printer by printing 6 pages that can be taped together then copied for full size prints.

In addition to a full library of furnishings, cabinets and fixtures it also has a full library of electrical symbols and it has a one touch feature that will automatically layout all the code required electrical items plus allow you to add additional custom items.

Thank you all for your posts. I'm curious about Broaderbund 3D now. Will check into it too. I can't wait to see my dream home (Frank Betz Sutcliffe) in 3D even from the inside! So cool!

Lazypup,
The older Broderbund 3D Home Architect (version 3, if I remember correctly) was very similar to Better Homes and Garden Home Design - I think both were based on Chief Architect, a professional program. But the newer versions of Broderbund 3D are not and are significantly different.

I have an old copy of the Broderbund program that ran on Windows 3.1 and loved it. Then I got a chance to get version 4 or 5 and absolutely hated it. Better Homes & Garden Home Design Suite was very much like an upgrade of the orginal Broderbund program I have.

Lazypup,

I agree with Woodswell. I have had the same programs, and bought the Better Homes & Gardens Interior Designer 7.0. It's very much like the older Broderbund programs -- but better from most perspectives. There are a couple of things that the newer program doesn't do that the old one did, such as "reversing" your floor plan (mirror image), and I believe framining overviews are not available either. Outside of that, I believe it's a much better program. It's very "intuitive" and I learned them myself without having to rely much on manuals or tutorials. You can also buy their "PRO" version which is more expensive, but it sounds like it's also more complicated and harder to learn. I was able to do the plan for my new house in quite a bit of detail, but I will be turning it over to an architect or engineer to do the final plans (with cross sections, etc.). I should warn you though that constructing the roof can get frustrating -- especially if you have a complicated roof. That's the hardest aspect of the program.

I have never tried the Punch Home design product, but I did try their landscape design software. It was awful. I think I bought just about every landscape package available, then found the BH&G landscaping program. Again, I love it - it's the only one that I've even managed to create simple landscape plans. I found it also works with Interior Designer - which is very nice.

I use Plan 3D which is online software. Steep learning curve like the rest of them, but if were too easy it wouldn't be worthwhile software!
In fact I got frustrated on the first plan I did with it (we scrapped it and started over and are glad we did) when I got to roofs, so I went back to 3D Home Architect which I had purchased and tried first. But only for a few minutes. Too limiting, so back to Plan 3D and the learning curve.
Unfortunately there's no user group for the software, but they have been very quick to respond when I have sent questions to help.
Recently I have worked on the outside of my house in Google Sketchup, which looks to be the tool of the future. At this point I won't rebuild the house inside out in it, but I probablly would go that route if I were starting now. It's going to have an extremely robust community with people and companies contributing objects (windows from manufacturers, furniture, etc.) which is what I think Plan 3D had in mind.
The best feature as has been mentioned is walking through the house in 3D. Absolutelty positively worth every one of the many hours it took to learn the spoftware and build the virtual house.

Jodie in north Georgia

I bought a one month subscription to Plan 3D and spent about two weeks struggling with it. Hated it. It's not intuitive and the instructions are not user friendly, I spent more time looking at the examples than actually drawing.

The only software I have found to be suitable for residential design work is Sketch Up.

mightyanvil-
that's amazing!

I used the BHG Deluxe my husband bought me for xmas and after ~4 hrs I created a shoebox for us to live in someday. It was really funny b/c I was expecting it to look like my dream home and when I pressed the 3D exterior button, it looked exactly like a shoebox - flat roof and all. There is a somewhat steep learning curve and I will return to it when I have more time to play. Too funny!

Mightyanvil,

Oh to master Sketchup enough to get the design to the stage you have yours!
For a resource, I found a Dummies book. Do you have any other leads to help learn it?
Did you build your own windows, etc.?

The windows are from Sketch Up version 3 I think but you can download them and other windows from the 3D warehouse. I don't have an instruction book, just use the help menu. My advantage is that I do this for clients so I have to finish what I start. Sketch Up is by far the easiest design software to learn and use.

LOL about finishing what you start! We creative types have that issue. I thank book deadlines--30 of them so far--for forcing me to see projects through to the end. (I write mostly quilting how-to books.) And doing it 40+ hours a week helps.
Okay, so hammering it out is the thing to do.
I can get the interior fine in Plan3D. But I truly need to work my way through the exterior to get the nuances of window sizing and layout and eaves, and slopes, etc. worked out. So onto Sketchup full force.
Thanks for your insight!

Build the basic shape of the house, including the roof, then add the windows, then add the roof eaves, rakes, trim, then the materials. Sketch Up is not an assembly of pre-designed parts, you draw as you would with a pencil and the surfaces form when three or more points lie in the same plane. It looks like a sketch but it is very accurate.

You can tell which direction you are drawings by the color of the line and type in the length after picking the start point and choosing a direction. To align the ends of lines touch the another point and then move the cursor until a dotted construction line appears to signal the alignment. To match the slope of a line, start a line and then touch another line with the cursor and then move the cursor until the new line turns pink. Press the shift key to constrain that line in the new direction.

The mid-point of a line is signaled when a blue dot appears. The best tool is the push/pull tool that allows you to drag a surface in or out. It allows you to stretch a roof shape across the house or push a door back 4 inches. The "follow me" tool allows you to do a similar thing but the shape follows an edge so you can extrude trim along a curve, like adding a bullnose to a curved kitchen counter.

This is a 3D modeling program; it is not made for drawing 2D plans for construction although the new Pro 6 version has a Layout program. I do a layout in a CAD program and then import it into Sketch Up, then draw the walls, then the roof. It is a design tool but when the design is working well I often show it to a client. The full Pro version is quite sophisticated. It can be tedious to make a lot of changes so I wait until the basic shape is good before I add the details.

Others, often architects, make objects and put them on the internet for others to use. Some are quite unbelievable.