Introduction
Welcome to the planning phase of your new home! The good news is that you don’t need to be a pro—or even hire one—to design a space that’s functional, comfortable and anything but cookie-cutter. The world of free home design software has exploded in recent years, with programs available for everyone from first-time homeowners to seasoned designers. Below, we’ve rounded up eight of our favorite free home and interior design tools, apps and software options.
DreamPlan Home Designer
With DreamPlan Home Designer, you can design the interior and exterior of your home. You can also design its floor plan, furniture, landscaping and lighting.
As a beginner-friendly tool that’s available in desktop or laptop versions, DreamPlan is ideal for first-time designers who want to test their skills before moving on to more advanced tools.
The program comes with preloaded designs for different rooms within the house so that you don’t have to create them yourself from scratch each time. This makes it easy for beginners to learn how to use it without having too many decisions on their plate at once.
Planner 5D
Planner 5D is a free interior design app that lets you create and share your own models. You can create rooms, add furniture and accessories and even design 3D floor plans. You can also export your designs to SketchUp, which is handy if you want to take it into the real world.
Planner 5D has an intuitive interface with lots of tutorials to get started. There are over 1 million items available in their library so there’s plenty of choice for your project!
SketchUp Free
If you have a home or room to design, then SketchUp is a great free tool for the job. It’s easy to use and can be used on any computer—you don’t need any special software or hardware. The program lets you create 3D models of your home, room or other space using simple tools that are available right in the program (no additional downloads needed).
It also has a huge library of templates that are fun and easy to use. You can find everything from vintage furniture pieces to modern furnishings in the template library, so it’s super easy to make sure your model looks just like what you wanted from day one—which is especially important if this is your first time using 3D modeling software!
Tinkercad
Tinkercad is built on top of the open source software Blender. It’s easy to use and has a simple interface, which makes it great for beginners who want to learn 3D design. The website boasts that users can create “complex designs with just a few clicks.”
Your designs are saved in the cloud, so you can access them across devices (assuming you’re signed into Tinkercad). You can also share your projects through social media or export them as files that you can upload elsewhere.
Sweet Home 3D
Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design tool that allows you to create 3D models, plan spaces, and place furniture. You can use it to design both your home and the furniture inside of it.
Sweet Home 3D has a lot of useful features including:
- Interior and exterior design tools.
- Landscaping tools for adding trees and flowers around your house.
- A simple drag-and-drop interface for placing objects around the house or garden area with ease! It’s very similar to how you would use Google SketchUp in that regard but without having all those pesky subscriptions fees attached when using Sweet Home 3D (which are unfortunately required with SketchUp).
Floorplanner.com
Floorplanner.com is another free tool that allows users to create and share floor plans. You can add furniture and appliances, lighting, decorations, windows and doors, landscaping and even rooms if you want. The best part about this website is how easy it is to use. All you have to do is click on your desired item from the menu items on top or click on a specific area of your floor plan where you want an item placed (like a kitchen or living room) then drag it into place!
If you’re looking for something similar but with more functionality than Floorplanner then check out Google Sketchup or Autodesk Homestyler!
AutoCAD Architecture
AutoCAD Architecture is a great tool for designing your home. It’s a good tool for architects and engineers, it’s a good tool for interior designers, and it’s even a good tool for builders. It has all the tools that you would find in AutoCAD software but specifically made to design buildings. There are also some great tutorials available on YouTube so you can get started quickly if you are new to AutoCAD software or just need some refresher videos on how to use this particular program.
AutoCAD Architecture is not free but costs around $500 depending on where you purchase it from and whether or not it comes with some additional features such as 3D modeling capabilities which can be added separately at an extra cost if needed by adding more RAM memory (which may not be necessary).
There are many amazing options for designing your house and it’s not as hard as you think
You can start with free software and then upgrade if you need to. There are many options to choose from, but we’ve found that the best ones have all of the following features:
- Easy to use
- Modern design tools
- Room-by-room plans
- The option of importing furniture into the design
Conclusion
It’s now easier than ever to design your home with just a few clicks of the mouse. In addition to being able to use the preloaded designs, many of these sites allow you to upload your own custom floor plan so that you can personalize it even more. These programs also provide great resources for creating your dream house and making sure that every room fits together perfectly.
