jannz77, Both of these 2 packages are as good as the use effort. So basically you get what you make. They don't offer any ideas or suggestions or 1-click views for different styles. You will have to pretty much draw everything yourself, the windows, the doors, exterior finish etc. etc. I am not aware of any package which does house-styles based off of a floor plan. Please do let me know if you find one.

Your welcome sayde. Don't forget to get the Bonus Packs too. When I started using it three months ago, I just did my kitchen. It was very useful and allowed me to visualize my new kitchen. But then I realized that I needed to see more of the house because I was knocking down a wall and I was curious about the sightlines. So I went back to the drawing board. After a few weeks of measuring almost everything, I now have my entire first floor sketched. I can now do a complete walkthrough. I have to say, it's pretty accurate too. It's almost like being in my house. I'm not sure about the Mac version, but at least for the PC version there is a really good rendering plugin, SUPodium, that's also free. It allowed me to see the lighting effects. I put in some cans, pendants and undercabinets. All I can say is wow.

I found SketchUp very easy to learn, FWIW. I was able to do basic 3D drawings within an hour or two. There are some great training videos on the web, most focused on just one task so you can pick and choose. There are also a lot of good "component libraries" that let you drop in things like cabinets, appliances, etc. without having to draw those yourself. All of this used to be at sketchup.google.com. I think it's still there while Trimble takes over, but I'm not 100% sure. This album has some drawings of my kitchen design that I did with SketchUp to try out different possibilities. Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer, so I tend to learn computer programs fairly quickly. Full disclosure: I work for Google, which owned Sketchup until a week or two ago. :-( Laura

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