Interior Design Software

If you are considering doing some home improvement projects or interior decorating, you may want to digitally experiment with color and layout before picking up that sledge hammer. A simple computer program can help you plan, test and share your ideas. It's faster, more convenient and a lot less messy.

Online Interior Design Interfaces

There are several web-based free and low-cost interior design interfaces available to give you a hand. Rather than arranging and then re-arranging your rooms before getting it just right, these platforms allow you to test furniture placements by clicking your mouse. It's much easier, much less strain and a lot more fun. These online programs are functional and user-friendly.

Better Homes and Garden's Arrange-a-Room

Better Homes and Gardens offers a free, online interior design program called Arrange-a-Room. Select the size and shape of the room, add some furniture, and then coordinate the style and color of the pieces within a room.The program is broken down by type of room and includes numerous accessories and other items to help finish the space. Once the room is complete, add in some color to get a realistic idea of what it will look like when you are done.The process takes just seconds to learn. Within minutes you can design and arrange furniture for the whole home. The finished designs can be printed or emailed directly to friends, family or your interior designer.

Icovia's Room Planner

Icovia's Room Planner is designed to accompany professional interior design websites to allow customers to fit new furniture into their homes before buying. The program includes a save feature, send by e-mail option, and tons of slick editing tools. Editing in this room planner is easy and you can also alter some of the furniture's properties, such as size and orientation. This feature is especially handy if you know exactly what you need. The downside is that most advanced saving/sharing features are disabled in the free trial on Icovia's website. You can, however, use a full version featured on a professional website. Here's a full-featured version of Room Planner as found on the Mathis Brothers Furniture website: Mathis Brothers Furniture Room Planner (by Icovia). Different versions of Icovia's software can be found throughout the web, but their free trial showcases the most useful features which include color changing and lots of extras.

PlanningWiz

PlanningWiz is an online room planner that allows you to experiment with different room layouts and plan your dream space online.The online room planner gives you the ability to design your ideal interior, create virtual rooms, and outfit them with items stored in the database, including: walls, furniture, home theater, sectional components, architectural elements, sanitary accessories, gym equipment, and room decorations. Arrange, resize, rotate, and shift the pieces as wanted, and then save, compare, print, or email the room plans. Additional features include an administration panel where you can add new items in the planner library, create pre-built plans, track customers, and access reports.

Installable Interior Design Software

If you are interested in purchasing software programs to install on your home computer, the following are some of the most popular. Note that these programs vary widely in price.

Home Designer Software

The Home Designer Software program allows you to experiment with looks for any room in your home in 3D format. The program boasts thousands of different furniture designs, colors, flooring, lighting options, and fabrics, so you can play around with any number of different looks until you get it just right. If you don't see the exact color you need, you can upload your own colors to the program using a digital photograph. If you're looking to complete a more extensive design project, you can even try out new windows and doors or design an entire room from the ground up.

Smart Draw

If your decorating project involves things like flooring changes or adding new cabinets, then Smart Draw could the the program for you. Although you can't test color and fabrics with this software, you can sketch out various flooring, cabinetry, and fixture options to see how they will look in a room. Choose from a number of preset templates, select where you'd like your new pieces to go, and let the program align everything for you. From there, move things around and try out different finishes until you get the look you want.

Better Homes and Gardens Design Software

Better Homes and Gardens has a number of interior design programs to suit a variety of projects. Their BH&G Interior Designer program strictly focuses on the interior of the home, while their BH&G Home Designer and BH&G Home Designer Plus programs cover interior and exterior designs. All the software comes with room templates, tons of color, fabric and furniture options, exclusive advice from Better Homes and Gardens editors, and photo galleries to help inspire your design.

NexGen Interior Design Suite

This affordable, user friendly program lets you upload a photo of your own room so you don't have to second guess any aspect of your design. Use the color, furniture, and fabric templates in the NexGen Suite to try out new looks in your room. These templates were provided by top home improvement stores and home decor lines, so you'll be able to try out the exact products you want to buy before shelling out for them. You can also use the "Go Green" function in the software to specifically look for eco-friendly products and get recommendations on how to make your home more energy efficient. As an added bonus, you can opt to download the software, rather than purchasing a disc, so you can get started right away.

Autodesk Homestyler

Autodesk Homestyler is a free design program, so it doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but it makes up for that in ease of use. Simply select room dimensions similar to your own space and start experimenting with design styles by dragging and dropping furniture, paint colors, wallpaper, flooring, lights, and more into the space. Move things around with a click of your mouse, or swap out items to try different looks. Many top home decor and paint companies list their products in Homestyler - in fact, over 20,000 catalog items from companies like Kohler, Flor, Sherwin-Williams, and Dacor can be found in Homestyler's templates, so you see how an item will look in your room before you buy it. This software is only available to download.

Software Pros and Cons

Design software programs are great for getting ideas or learning how interior decorating works. They can show you what colors work well together and how to set up furniture in tricky rooms. Some programs will allow you to add digital pictures of items in your home, such as art or rugs. Other software programs have custom decorating palettes and offer thousands of options for fabric, floors, wall colors and window treatments. Still others offer hundreds of furniture options.

The flipside comes when your program has a limited template library, so you don't get a realistic picture of how your design will turn out. Likewise, colors can look different on a computer screen than they do in real life. Keep these constraints in mind when you're fleshing out your design.

Pricing Interior Design Software

Design programs range in cost from free to thousands of dollars. However, if you just want a basic program to learn about interior design, a middle-of-the-road software product may be for you (about $40).

Design at Your Fingertips

Interior design programs can be basic or complex, but they're great tools for amateurs and professionals alike. Even the most bare-boned program can help you look at your home in new ways and unleash your creativity. Before you set out on your next design project, give it a dry run on a software program. Decor satisfaction is just a mouse click away.