Hi A2 - how goes? Hope you're home enjoying the Spring / early Summer :) I use Photoshop Elements, much cheaper than Photoshop. I've done pretty well at times with Google Sketch-up too. Learning curve with both. Key with Elements is taking pictures from 'straight on' (makes everything so much easier). annettacm - that looks great! Seaswirl - good luck! Google sketchup (free): Photoshop Elements: Last - photocopy the tile you love and then cut and paste up to see how it will look: Good luck!

Best is a very subjective term. Some might think that the best is the one that is the simplest to learn straight away. Some might think that it's the one with the most abilities to manipulate things. Some might think it's the lowest cost option. However, it's hard to beat SketchUp in capabilities and cost, since it's free. The BHG version of Chief Architect would probably be next for homeowners, and the $200 version can do quite a lot for someone who has the knack of spatial relationships. Neither will work well for someone without that knack. And that's not really "softwearable". Ikea is a distant third, because it's very very limited in what you can do. But, it's a lot easier for most people to grasp, which can get them started for a basic layout. For pros, the industry standard remains 20/20. It probably has 85% of the market, because it's supported by all of the cabinet manufacturers. ProKitchen has the other 15% and is beginning to also be well supported by the cabinet companies. Chief Architect isn't used in kitchen design except by builders or architects because it doesn't have the cabinet company plug ins. You have to set the attributes yourself. Revit is also used by some architects and builders, but again, it isn't cabinet industry supported.

We're doing a major remodel / rebuild that encompasses more than just the kitchen. Our architect uses Archicad for Mac. He is advising us on interior design, but our design budget was used up months ago. So I found a program for the Mac called "Live Interior 3D" on Apple's "App Store" for $39 and thought I would give it a try. It has been great. I imported the 2D PDF of plans from the architect and then traced walls in my app, then added windows and floors, etc. and added furniture. Architect and I will have discussions about design concepts for living room / kitchen (mainly so far) and I'll draw them up and share screenshots and we'll chat about it. So he helps with design direction but I do the work of creating the visualization. Now that we have it, we can use it to consider color, flooring, etc. You can add lights, change size and luminosity, change time of day, etc. and the program renders shadows etc. We used this technique (combined with very helpful ideas from this forum) to determine that we would go with a counter height eating area on our peninsula with a seat at the end. Once we had that, I figured I could get a nice 30" drawer in before the prep sink. Also used it to visualize a 36 vs 30 inch range (going with 36). Then last week we met with the cabinet guys and I gave them screenshots and ideas (including custom depth for an upper cabinet for a microwave near the fridge). It's not in any way a kitchen design program per se that will give you quantities of cabinets. But it doesn't for instance let you change the cabinet face style etc. You can change wood color. You can import objects from sketchup, including searching for objects online through the software interface. Here's our "fridge wall". At the top will be other top-hinged I imagine cabinets but I was lazy and didn't put them in. The cabinets (where the micro is put) are 18" deep so we can put a decent microwave in their. I showed this to the electrician yesterday and he made a mental note to put the power receptacle in the cabinet above it. Also told us to have the cabinet guy put in a shelf that would support the weight of the microwave so we don't have to hang it. Right now I'm modelling different sizes of range hoods from ProLine to figure out which one will both look good and give us 1000+ cfm venting. Here is the range wall (opposite fridge on end of U) with the geometry of this hood: http://www.prolinerangehoods.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=32_46&products_id=200 Here is a rendering: I created the range hood geometry by adding 2 blocks and giving them a metal surface texture. To the right of the range we **could** fit a 24" Miele Chef. I'm going to defer this purchase, but based on this modeling we're going to run conduit now, and put in Miele-friendly drawers so in the future if we want to add it we'll be able to without totally ripping apart everything. Really easy to use program if you're Mac-centric like me. Great tech support too. http://www.belightsoft.com/products/liveinterior/overview.php

My suggestions as a tech guy & TKO type: Better Homes & Gardens Home Designer for designing spaces. It has a small learning curve and costs money, but it's flexible enough and more user friendly than other options. Pinterest.com to manage ideas / inspirations / products. Addicting. Simple. Genius. Excel Spreadsheets can not be beat for managing other information. A tab for vendor contacts and notes, a tab for budget, a tab for appliance comparison shopping, etc.