Interior Design Smart Phone Apps
At home or on the go, smartphone apps can fuel your inspiration and take the guesswork out of home design and decorating.
From the comfort of your smartphone or tablet screen, you can create new floor plans, rearrange furniture, paint walls, try out new products, and come up with incredible ideas for refreshing your home, your way. Here are five of the best interior design smartphone apps to check out this year.
1. Houzz Interior Design Ideas
Take the inimitable website with you in a handy app form wherever you go. Create a virtual scrapbook of your favourite ideas by sorting through the millions of images and kernels of inspiration collected in the enormous Houzz database. Search images by room and aesthetic, find top-rated local professionals, get detailed advice from the extensive library of renovation articles, and shop for unusual and exciting products. (Free, iOS and Android)
2. Dulux Visualizer
For everyone who has ever had that gentle golden green idea turn into screaming neon on the wall, Dulux has released an app to help bridge the gap between imagination and reality. The Dulux Visualizer app uses augmented reality tech to apply your chosen colour to your walls, helping you find hues that match your furniture and décor. Once you've narrowed down your options, you can order testers directly in the app. (Free, iOS and Android)
3. Homestyler Interior Design
With a sleek, intuitive interface, Autodesk's Homestyler app makes it easy to experiment with your remodelling ideas. Using a picture of the room, Homestyler allows you to furnish it with 3D renderings of actual products, install light fixtures, and decorate with realistic models. You can also browse designs created by other users and professionals, and share your own. (Free, iOS and Android)
4. iHandy Carpenter
Transform your smartphone into a digital tool belt with iHandy Carpenter. This simple, stylish app offers a plumb bob to measure vertical lines, a surface level and bubble level bar for horizontal measurements, a protractor for angles, and a ruler. Additionally, you can calibrate the levels to act as inclinometers that display angles on your screen. (£1.49, iOS and Android)
There's even a handy video on how to take measurements here:
5. Home Design 3D
Garnering accolades from tech sites and mainstream press alike, Home Design 3D makes complex 3D-rendering and design software accessible to anyone. Create floor plans and then bring them to life with walls, windows, doors, and décor elements – choosing from a range of styles, colours, textures, and customisable materials. Once you've realised your inspiration, you can take a virtual tour of your design in 3D. The app comes in free versions for iOS and Android, and offers upgrades to the classic (£4.99) and gold (£2.99 additional) versions for iOS users.
