Home Design App Apple Pencil

This is my list of the best paid and free interior design apps. After using many interior design apps from iOS and Google Play, this is my shortlist. These actually work on mobile devices. Very cool.

If you're serious about interior design software, I recommend you use a good software option on a desktop or laptop computer. The apps are good, but you're still working on a small screen.

If you want to muck around for fun, get the apps. There are some good ones. We list the 9 best ones below. However, if you actually need to design a room or a home or landscaping, you really need to work on a laptop or desktop.

Nevertheless, below, I set out 9 of the best interior design apps and show you where you can get them. That way, you can start using them too. Most of the apps we'll review here are for beginners or amateur designers. But a couple of them are more professional for those who are ready to take their design to the next level.

1. Planner5D App

Screenshot of the Planner5D app.

Price: Free with paid upgrade features.

iOS | Google Play (Android)

Planner5D app is also very good. Thousands of users rate it very highly, which is not easy to achieve for a design app because it's frustrating due to screen size (not app quality).

Planner 5D is one of the best interior design apps for either consumers or professionals looking to decorate or design their home for the first time or interior designers who were asked to remodel a home or create a new look. Their logo is to create your dream home and they have an easy to use 2D and 3D Home Design tool in the app. You could also join a community over 34 million amateur designers. The simple drag-and-drop format makes the app fun as well as educational.

Features:

Editor – edit and view your home design in 2D, 3D and Virtual Reality modes
Catalog – lots of items to use in your designs
Snapshots – realistic images of your designs
Gallery – projects and images of designs created by our users
Can be used online and offline
Sign in with your planner5d.com, Google+ or Facebook account to use your designs across all platforms
User interface localized in these languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese
View your design using Chromecast (screencast)
Free version contains an unlimited number of projects, catalog with 150+ free items, multi-platform synchronization, Google Cardboard mode for Virtual Reality view, 2D and 3D editor, and 5 custom textures and free catalog of textures

2. Houzz App

Screenshot of the Houzz app.

This app is great, it really is.

Houzz is considered the number one app for improving and assigning your home. Is the sign for consumers but interior designers can certainly benefit from having this app on their device. It doesn't matter whether you are remodeling or helping someone else remodel or decorate a house, this app gives you some of the best design ideas.

There are more than 16 million high-quality photos of homes that you can use as models when dealing with your clients. They cover both interior and exterior areas of the home and you can move things around in the way that you want complete with 3D product reviews. This app is certainly a good addition to any interior designers repertoire. One of the best features of the Houzz app is that it allows you to share your favorite images with family friends and design professionals.

Features:

Browse more than 16 million high-resolution photos of home interiors and exteriors. Choose by style, location or room, such as kitchen or bathroom.
Save and share photos with friends, family and home professionals.
Use the Sketch feature to annotate and draw directly on photos from Houzz.
Shop from more than 10 million products and materials, including vanities, cabinets, lighting, furniture, tile and more.
Read verified product reviews.
Save up to 75% off during featured sales.
Use Visual Match, our visual recognition technology, to discover and buy products and materials directly from photos on Houzz.
Wondering what that sofa would look like in your living room? Select the View in My Room 3D feature and use the camera on your Android device to see how products would look in your space.
Connect with over 2.1 million active home improvement professionals, including architects, general contractors, interior decorators, repair professionals and more.

Price: Free

iOS | Google Play (Android)

3. Design Home App

Screenshot of the Design Home app.

Why not make Home Design fun? Design Home does just that by allowing you to have a fun, relaxing game that let you live the life of an interior decorator. You can work on your design skills and have design challenges that give you 3D spaces to work in.

You'll have access to very nice high-end furniture and top brands that interior designers would have on the job. It's fun and you can create a connection to a creative Community while learning about diverse Decor styles.

Design Home is a simulation game by Crowdstar Incorporated and is rated E for everyone. So kids can play too. There are several features including the ability to unlock rewards as you polish your abilities as a designer playing with real life high-end Brands. You'll learn about design styles and more. The game is free-to-play but you can also pay real money for extra items.

Features:

Relax through play and express your creativity in daily Design Challenges.
Unlock rewards as you polish your amazing abilities as an interior decorator.
Play with real life, high-end brands as you learn about different interior design styles.
Vote on your favorite rooms from a vibrant, creative community.
Share your creativity and borrow furnishings from your friends when you connect to Facebook.
This game is free to play, but you can choose to pay real money for some extra items, which will charge your Google account. You can disable in-app purchasing by adjusting your device settings.
Not intended for children.
Advertising appears in this game.
Permits users to interact with one another (e.g., chat rooms, player to player chat, messaging) depending on the availability of these features. Linking to social networking sites are not intended for persons in violation of the applicable rules of such social networking sites.
Requires network connection.

Price: Free with premium in-app purchases to expand the game

iOS | Google Play (Android)

4. Homestyler App

Screenshot of the Homestyler app.

The Homestyler app (better known as Easyhome Homestyler) lets you visualize the entire interior design process and share your ideas with others. You can snap a photo of your space and your mobile device will be transported into a virtual fitting room. Here you will see furniture products from real brands and get ideas and inspiration from interior designers and others. Add decor items or move things around as you like. You'll have access to many of the tips and trends that designers and counter and learn what makes a home look appealing.

Features:

Place high-quality 3D models of real furniture products in your rooms
Clear out existing items to try out new ideas
Hang light fixtures from your ceiling
Visualize different product combinations
See how realistic models of actual branded rugs, paintings, mirrors and more look in your space
Browse the Design Stream for pics, articles, how-to's and more
Share your designs with friends and family through Facebook and email
Comment on and "Heart" designs within the Design Gallery

Price: free

iOS | Google Play (Android)

5. Ikea Room Planner App

Screenshot of the IKEA Room Planner app.

This app has the logo of "making your dream room a reality." You can launch your dream room on this interior design app that lets you choose from a variety of kitchen and dining room furniture and fit them to the exact measurements of your real home. You can rearrange different styles until you like the result and see the result in 3D. Then you can print with all the measurements to scale like an architect. This app gives interior decorators a look at the design process and even gives them a hint as to how to do a floor plan.

This app is offered free by the Ikea company.

Features:

Create floor plans of your own or build on a project from an existing gallery
Choose and customize furniture, accessories and decor elements from a regularly re-stored catalog
Apply hundreds of textures and colors in different combinations
Drag and drop items to any place on your layout

Price: free

iOS | Google Play (Android)

6. Home Design 3D App

Screenshot of the Home Design 3D app.

Here is a home design app that allows you to do a number of things that real interior designers do. Built for the amateur or professional, you can try different ideas within the program that is available in both iOS and Android platforms.

Some of the features we like include the ability to draw floor plans in either 2D or 3D dimensions. This includes being able to adjust the height of the walls and the thickness. You can furnish and decorate your room both indoors and outdoors with our 1500 pieces of furniture and hundreds of textures. Finally, you can visualize and visit your creation in real 3D real-time and walk through a tour of the results of your labors.

Once you're finished, you'll even be able to import blueprints and save them to Dropbox or Google Drive. This app inspires the imagination of an interior designer or an everyday person who just wants to see their home in a different light.

One special feature we liked about this app is that it gives you beautiful projects that are made by other users. It is user-friendly and gives you regular updates and quick results. There is a freemium edition which is a trial version that is free and a Gold Edition that is 11.99 per month. You'll have upgrades with this edition for unlimited numbers of floors. It has good reviews on the site so check it out when you can. They are very active on social media, so you can keep up with updates there.

Features:

Design your floor plan in 2D and 3D, draw your plot, rooms, dividers
Change the height or the thickness of the walls, create corners
Add doors and windows with fully-resizable pieces of joinery
Furnish and decorate both the interior and outdoor of your home
Make your choice from over a thousand pieces of furniture and accessories, customize your decoration and express your style, from the most classical to the trendiest!
Edit any object, by changing its size, color, position and altitude on the walls
Duplicate your favorite items thanks to the copy/paste function
Use the undo/redo feature at any time if you want to go back
Use the eyedropper to find an existing color in the plan
You can also import a picture as texture and apply them everywhere
Visualize and visit your creation in real-time 3D as if you were inside it thanks to our brand new photo-realistic 3D rendering
Discover your home, your outdoor and even your neighborhood
Admire the result day and night, the compass function will show you where exactly the light will fall at different times of the day
Import any plan and display it on the background of the project
Export and continue your projects on your other devices thanks to the cross-platform compatibility
Share your projects via e-mail, Dropbox, OneDrive and many more file hosting services!
Share your best creations with the Home Design 3D community on www.homedesign3d.net!
No internet connection required
Illustrated tutorial available

Price: Freemium

iOS | Google Play (Android)

7. CAD Design 3D App

Screenshot of the CAD Design 3D app.

3D CAD design is perhaps the most popular Auto rendering smart automation software available for interior designers as well as graphic designers, automotive industry designers, and engineers. It is used in everything from creating and manufacturing automobiles to designing homes or producing models and sound stages for blockbuster movies.

The program is known for its ability to show design and technical documentation and it's used by a wide variety of professionals. The app is available at the autodesk.com site. It has good reviews on both platforms. CAD is at the heart of product design and manufacturing as well as architecture and engineering. It upholds the standards of the interior design industry.

You can sign up for the free 3D CAD software for students and educators and also for nonprofit organizations. The cost for the full version of CAD is $1,575 per year so this is an expensive program but for those who were serious about the design industry as a designer or engineer, it will be worth the money. On the Autodesk site, you will find a variety of other software programs that either enhance or supplement the AutoCAD program.

Features:

Open any projects synced with your AUTOCAD account
Perform basic edits with drawing tools, moving objects, resizing, etc.
No internet connection required
Share your work online
Add notes and images to complement the project
Print documents from the program using the ePrint and Share service

Price: Freemium

Note: The Full version of Auto CAD or CAD Design 3D is not compatible with mobile devices. This is a full-scale professional design program that requires the resources of a full desktop system to function and render. Below are the links to the mobile versions.

iOS | Google Play (Android)

Inquire about the paid professional program here.

8. Floor Plan Creator App

Screenshot of the Floor Plan Creator app.

The Floor Plan creator app is available on both platforms. It allows you to take your fingers and move furniture around as well as draw out the size of the walls and perimeters. You can go to 3D tour mode to see your entire project and you can have multiple floors with rooms of any shape. It will automatically calculate the room and wall area so you don't have to do the math. You can synchronize your work to the Cloud to automatically back up what's finished. For this, you have a 3-day free trial then you must subscribe. But the app itself is free. It is rated E for everyone.

Features:

Multi-platform application.
Projects can have multiple floors with rooms of any shape (straight walls only).
Automatic calculation of room, walls and level area; perimeter; counts of symbols.
S-Pen and mouse support.
3D tour mode.
Symbol library: doors, windows, furniture, electrical, fire survey.
User defined dimension lines to show and modify distances and sizes.
Cloud synchronization to automatically backup and share plans between devices (purchased, 3 days free trial).
Edit cloud uploaded plans on https://floorplancreator.net on a computer or any mobile device.
Export as image, PDF with print to scale, DXF, SVG (purchased).
Supports metric and imperial units.
Supports Bosch GLM, Bosch PLR , Leica Disto, Stabila (LD 520, LD 250 BT) and CEM iLDM-150 Bluetooth laser meters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvuGwnt-8u4

Price: Freemium/Free trial

iOS | Google Play (Android)

9. Terry Fabrics Window Planner

Terry's Fabric App example of how to use it to analyze window coverings

Terrys Fabrics App Example

Home furnishings retailer Terrys Fabrics have created an app "Terrys Fabrics Window Planner" that incorporated innovative imaging technology to showcase over 2,000 product and material variations of blinds to their customers.

The free of charge app works by simply directing the customer to take a photograph of their chosen window before adding the measurements of the window to the app. The app will then virtually showcase the thousands of variations of blinds that are available on site, and how they will look within the interiors of the customers home. Consumers have the opportunity to flick between their potential styles, before choosing the item they are ready to purchase.

This technology allows the customer to see for themselves how the products will look within their current home style, without having to wait for samples to arrive. The retailer believes that virtual reality is the future of online interior shopping as it allows customers to try before they buy in a way like never before. They also believe that customer satisfaction should shoot through the roof, as more and more customers will be confident in their purchases before they even arrive. The Terrys Fabrics Window Planner is available to download through the iOS store on all apple devices.

Only available in iOS.

10. DecorMatters

Decor Matters interior design app

Love decorating and designing? This creative community of over four million users is powered by Augmented Reality & Artificial Intelligence technology as a home design game and shopping tool for house flipping or freelance projects, and a relaxing space to unleash design creativity. Find the latest home decor trends and DIY tips from interior designers and bloggers, browse for inspiration and try other users' designs on your own template or room, and build an impressive design portfolio and become an influencer of the community.

The DecorMatters app also has a gamification aspect to it, where users can sponsor their own design challenges for the community to participate in. Through these challenges, users can win badges and coins, increase their expert level and make it on the leaderboard by unleashing creativity with their designs, influencing the community, and participating in unique events.

Decor Matters provides millions of home furniture, decorations, lighting, and art from some of the largest furniture brands, including Wayfair, Overstock, World Market, Pier 1, West Elm, Article, and more. Users can filter through a wide selection of products based on room, style, and brand, and through the AR tool, try out items in the home before making a purchase and buying it straight from the app.

iOS | DecorMatters Website

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