Home Design Software

OK, I've been a little stupid. I'm completely broke, but I went out and bought some Home Design software.

I picked up Individual's Total 3D Home & Landscape first. Overall very easy to use once I had spent a few hours with it. Drafting a room was pretty easy, and so was adding furniture.

On the minus side the 3D furniture selection is very limited; and I couldn't make it import any of my JPEGs into the room I created. Also the textures I could apply to surfaces were very limited. For instance, there was a wonderful metallic silver, perfect for my Rustoleum wall, but I couldn't apply that texture to my wall. I could only apply it to things that are supposed to be metal, like bathroom faucets.

Next I bought (on sale) Punch's 5 in 1 Home Designer. I bough it because it has a "Furniture Workshop," and at the very least I thought I could make my own furniture. I couldn't even make a stupid lamp. And the textures were even more limited! I didn't care for the home layout, either, I felt it was much less intuitive than the Individual program.

I have one more product sitting on my study floor, but I think I'll return it untested. Borderbund's 3D Home Architect is in version 6, but Target only had up to version 5. This older version is all over eBay for $5, so I can't see spending $35 on it the way I did.

The best thing about all these products has been the wealth of pictures available. I've saved them into a central folder on my hard drive so I can import them into CorelDRAW as needed. (So far Corel is still my favorite home layout program, even without all the 3D stuff.) Corel can make my wall metallic, just watch.



There is one more product I want to try -- the Better Homes and Garden software is supposed to be the best on the market. It will have to wait until after payday, though. I can't afford an $89.00 program right now.

(later)

Spackled everything, but probably will not have time to paint tonight. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. Drove to Target and bought another curtain rod, this one for the French doors. I've pretty well decided to order the panels from Urban Outfitters once I get paid.