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Kitchen/Home Design Software for Novices

9 years ago

My wife and I are in the early stages of working with a GC who specializes in kitchen remodels to renovate our kitchen, and likely other areas of the house as well. He's drawing up the plans, but everything we contemplate affects other areas, and the house is quirky enough that it's not immediately obvious whether an idea will work.

Rather than bounce ideas off of the contractor and wait for him to come back with new plans, I'd like to experiment with different designs myself. Could anyone recommend a basic design package that I could use to do this?

I'm by no means a DIYer, so I don't need anywhere near the features of a professional program. I just want to experiment with different layouts and discuss these with my wife beforehand, to make our sessions with the contractor more productive.

Basically I'd like something that is easy to learn and use. Elevations and 3D walkthroughs would be nice, but I could certainly get by with just basic room layouts. The other feature that I'd really like would be the ability to drop various kitchen cabinets and appliances into the diagrams. I don't need to choose trim or do anything fancy - just put in the basic cabinet layout.

I was looking at the Home Designer Interiors package by Chief Architect. Does anyone have experience with this package? My major concern with this package is that it might not be very intuitive and instructions seem to be given by online videos. I'd much rather look something up in a manual rather than watch countless hours of videos to get the information I need.

I'd greatly appreciate hearing any suggestions that members might have.

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Comments (6)

chitown_mary
9 years ago
There are some wonderfully advanced software tools out there, but my current favorite is a simple (and FREE) virtual planner on the National Kitchen & Bath Assoc. website. It's very easy to use/modify and saves everything in a .pdf complete with 2D and 3D views, measurements, elevations, and shopping list of cabinets, hardware, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: NKBA virtual planner
elunday
9 years ago
I've used Floorplanner.com for our renovation. Pretty intuitive to use and free for up to six plans. Allows both 2D and 3D views. It's not fancy, but it's done the job.
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I used Live Interior. It was somewhat helpful, I guess. I don't have a lot of experience with such programs, so don't take my "review" too seriously, lol. Mostly I used it before we decided to just demo the whole downstairs and move the kitchen, so I was playing around with fitting things into our original space. That was frustrating, but I think it was as much the kitchen as the program. My kd drew everything, didn't use computers at all, so I didn't have any 3D renderings. So when I got a plan from him, I sort of mocked it up in Live Interiors. There aren't a lot of choices of finish (or at least anything near what I was going to use), but it was mildly helpful. Soooo ... I guess if you don't really *need* that $80, it's kind of fun. But I never ended up with anything that even remotely resembled my current kitchen. (I guess that isn't exactly a resoundingly positive take, is it?? I was jealous of many of the other pc-based renderings I saw on here. It doesn't seem like Mac has any consumer-oriented design programs like that.)
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I used the BH&G Home Designer Pro. Originally started with just the Home Designer, but got a LOT more functionality with the Pro. It has all types of furniture, cabinets, etc you can essentially drag and drop. You can do design and then switch to elevations or 3D. Lots more functions I can't even begin to list here. We even did detail stuff like put in the Latitude, longitude and time of year to figure out sun angles and how deep our overhangs needed to be. It was pricey, but SO worth it. No access to architects here, so we essentially did our own design. It still shocks me when we visit the build site that the finished product actually looks like the design! Learning curve is a bit much for a non-designer, but if you are used to CAD programs, I suspect you won't have any problems. House should be finished in June.
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We used Chief Architect too. Definitely a learning curve. Also, in order to get everything correct, this WILL take time on your part. I.E. someone needs to take all the measurements. Whether you pay someone or do it yourself... :) That said, Chief Architect gives you a great walkthrough and was a good tool. Keep asking -- hopefully, you'll find something which does the same, but much less expensive! Best, Oldbat2be
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Whatever software you find, a computer monitor will not accurately display colors, especially true for light wall colors.
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Karenseb
9 years ago
I've had a lot of fun with home styler auto desk (free). 2d and 3d views plus they have a nifty 360 degree snapshot feature. Really neat!
They have a new beta version I haven't tried yet.
Lowes also has free design software which I like.
LE
9 years ago
Just tagging along here. Need to do something similar for studio (but it uses kitchen cabs). Do any of these work on Macs?
jakuvall
9 years ago
Lori- Home Designer is available for Mac.

Greasetrap- I use Chief Architect in my work. It comes with a user manual in PDF, might be one for HD. The videos are very useful and can be searched by topic. User forum is very helpful for Chief and there is one for HD.
Learning basics are easy enough but after that it gets rough. Walls cabinets are easy enough. There is a free trial.

Someone on the board had found a freebie that was similar I'd more limited last year (pc only). I'll check when back at computer.
nels1678
9 years ago
Hi Guys,

I'm using sweethome3d to generate floorplans and 3D visualizations of our space. It's free and it's java based so it will run on windows/mac and linux (which sketchup doesn't support, so this was key for me). It's not perfect and you have to go through a lot of hoops to do complicated things (slanted roofs with skylights specifically!), but if you screw with it enough you can do some pretty powerful things. Their lighting model isn't ideal (really? No diffuse and specular surfaces at the same time!?), but it's fairly easy to use.

here's some shots of the layout I did with it (arrows and text were added after in another program)

And the current work in progress rendering of the new space:

Here is a link that might be useful: SweetHome3D

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