There are a million and one things to consider when you’re planning to redecorate or redesign a space.
From furniture layout to floor plan to color scheme, your head is probably reeling with so many things to look after.
Whether you want to redesign the client’s space to create a home office or make structural changes like adding a patio to their home, you must adapt to a creative mindset.
But creativity doesn’t come naturally to everyone.
To let your creative juices flow, you need interior design tools. As you may be spending long hours planning and creating floor plans, it’s always good to plan from the start. The more intricate and beautiful your design plans, the happier your customers will be, and the more your business will flourish.
What Are Interior Design Tools?
Interior design software uses technology to help you create designs and visualize your space before starting the physical set-up. From creating floor plans to giving 360-degree rendering of 3D designs, 3D home design software is probably your best bet. The home design tools are versatile and ideal for your customers who look for a fresh way to update their homes during the pandemic.
With the right set of software in your design stack, you can seamlessly make customers happy by providing them with their dream home.
With so many interior design tools and each boasting of designing beautiful homes, finding one that lives up to its promise becomes difficult. To make your life less-messier, we’ve listed five design tools you should invest in:
1. Foyr Neo
Foyr Neo tops our list because it’s the first-ever design tool that provides an end-to-end design workflow. With this tool, you can plan, design, and render within a few minutes because it provides lightning-fast results.
Foyr Neo empowers users to showcase their designs to their clients before commencing real-life work. You can create 2D and 3D home designs and high-quality renders in less than 10-minutes.
From creating floor plans effortlessly to offering design presets, this user-friendly tool is perfect for anyone planning to live in a home setting of their choice. You will find hundreds of pre-made designs for home, kitchen, interiors, and office.
With this software, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch with every project. Instead, use these globally curated pre-made designs to create amazing-looking homes.
This powerful 3D home design tool is immersive enough to ensure you feel as if you’re moving through your future dream home.
Also, it’s flexible enough to provide the comfort of working with pen and paper.
Key features:
- Offers a lightning-fast rendering engine
- Converts 2D designs to 3D within minutes
- Provides 4k images to impress clients
- Provides 360-degrees tour of your unbuilt space
- 360-degrees tour available on laptops, phone, and even VR
- Provides photorealistic rendering
Why use Foyr Neo? Regardless of whether you’re a beginner or a professional designer, Foyr Neo is the most easy-to-use design software on our list. As it uses AI technology, the learning curve is not steep at all. The company boasts of a solid knowledge base primarily focusing on different tutorials of using this design tool.
Tech specifications: With Foyr Neo, you don’t have to download and install any software because it’s a cloud-based application program allowing you access from anywhere and on any device.
Pricing: Offers a 14-day free trial, and the Basic plan starts at $49 per month.
2. Sketchup
Sketchup is probably the most comprehensive tool on our list. From contemporary furnishings to passive home buildings, the tool is a must-have in your arsenal if you’re looking for easy 3D modeling.
Interestingly, you can design highly accurate (sometimes to a thousandth of an inch) models for your home. With a single click of a mouse, you can provide your customers a home where they would love to spend time.
Whether you want to build an extension for your home or add a treehouse to it, the thoroughness of Sketchup sets it apart from the competitors. Also, it seamlessly turns your models into animated walkthroughs to explain every minute detail to your client. Sounds great? Wait.
Sketchup allows you to create a sustainable home. It measures your building data, analyzes and anticipates energy use and daylight, occupant thermal comfort to ensure the design hits post-occupancy goals and people living inside the home don’t feel uncomfortable.
Key features:
- Provides seamless integration with virtual reality applications like HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, and Oculus
- Allows addition of elements like textures, shadows, and line work
- Exports design files into images, PDFs, and CAD files
- Offers a huge library of free 3D models
- Allows you to choose from an array of 3D objects to use for your home design
Why use Sketchup? It offers a user-friendly interface with simple-to-use features. It’s an intelligent and intuitive tool that helps you create great home designs.
Tech specifications: Provide a web version for their free version and Mac and Windows compatible for their pro version.
Pricing: Offers a 30-day free trial and the Pro version costs $299 per year.
3. Floorplanner
Another versatile and powerful tool on our list is Floorplanner. From balcony designs to entire room design, it’s a one-stops-solution for all your home design requirements. As the name suggests, the strength of Floorplanner lies in its ability to create floor plans for homes.
Upon completing the floor plan, you can decorate the space as per customer requirements in 3D. You can test various combinations of windows, skylights, furniture, and fixtures and choose one that fits the requirement.
Floorplanner boasts of a Magic Layout function that empowers users to test different styles and layouts with a single click of a button.
Key features:
- Creates 2D floor plans
- Offers a library consisting of over 150,000 3D items
- Allows sharing of plans via cloud
- Allows sharing or printing of designs on social media platforms
- Empowers users to make edits using multi-purpose editing
- Ensures users can move and rotate items in 3D and save multiple camera positions
Why use Floorplanner? Easy to use solution that allows users to create lavishly decorated home space.
Tech specs: Cloud-based home design software available on major operating systems
Pricing: Offers a free basic plan, and the Plus plan for individuals starts at $5, and the Pro plan starts at $20 per month.
4. Homestyler
Homestyler is another powerful tool in the world of interior design. Why? It lets you design your home by using furniture from real brands. With Homestyler, you can choose from a comprehensive list of furniture libraries and decorate your space with real furniture products, flooring, and even painting.
Key features:
- Create 2D and 3D plans within a click of few buttons
- Help users to walk through their design in a photorealistic 720 panorama view
- Furnish your space with real furniture products from world-renowned brands
- Allows users to share their designs on social media
Why use Homestyler? Though the dashboard has a simple layout, the navigation is a little complex. Also, it allows you to designate colors to your entire room, walls, and even flooring.
Tech specs: Web-based application
Pricing: Offers a free basic plan and the Pro plan starts at $19.9 per month
5. Chief Architect
As the name suggests, it’s primarily geared towards home planners and architects. If cost isn’t a constraint, it could be one of the best tools for your interior designing work. Interestingly, while you draw elements using the software, it automatically creates a 3D model. With Chief Architect, users can view their 3D models from different angles.
It’s the tool you will never repent investing in because it takes care of the most intricate home design.
Key features:
- Allows you to select different textures, cabinets, furnishings, and appliances from the 3D library
- Supports automatic wall elevation dimension
- Empowers users to choose from thousands of colors, materials, and styles
- Provides virtual tours of created designs
- Automatically generates floor, roofs, and ceilings
Why use Chief Architect? Intuitive and easy-to-use interface and allows users to export 360-degrees photorealistic rendering to share with clients.
Tech specs: Requires users to download the software. Compatible with Mac and Windows operating system
Pricing: Offers a free trial, and the software costs $199 per month
Choosing the Best Interior Design Tool
Without further ado, these were our five all-time favorite interior design tools that can help you create lavishly decorated homes. Each one of them brings something unique to the table.
While Foyr Neo provides an excellent end-to-end design workflow, Homestyler offers a photorealistic 720 panorama view. Floorplanner creates accurate and precise floor plans; the ultimate choice boils down to your requirement.
So, when selecting home design tools, consider a tool based on the vastness of their object library, technical specifications, ease-of-use, and cost. There may be instances where you may have to juggle between two different tools based on your client’s requirements.
All these tools will accurately help you flesh out ideas and turn them into a reality!
With interior design tools, dreaming up a new home has never been more fun.
Author’s bio:
Priya Jain is a professional copywriter working with Skale. She has an MBA and engineering degree. When she is not writing, you will find her teaching math, spending her day running behind her toddler, and trying new recipes.
