Our new house just completed transaction, so it is time to think about renovation ideas. Pat has some idea how to renovate the new house. However you won’t know whether or not you really like your renovation idea until it is done and that is too late if you don’t like it. It is much safer to visualize the charge, fine tune the details before hiring a contractor to get the job done. I have been spending the weekend creating a 3D model for our new house, so we can experiment in the computer before finalizing out idea.

I tried two different software, HDTV Home & Landscape Platinum Suite and Better Home Design Suite. The former one is written by a little known company market under the banner of a TV channel. The latter is written by the same company that creates Chef Architecture, the software of choice for professional interior designers. To my surprise, the HDTV software is much better than a dumb down version of the professional tool. The user interface HDTV is very initiative, I don’t even need to read the manual, just use open the online help occasionally when I am confused about the function of the dialog box. Creating the basic model is pretty fast, probably it took me about an hour to draw the walls, windows and doors. Get the an accurate measurement from the house to fine tune the model took me a whole afternoon.  After I drew the wall, the software then auto generate the floor, ceiling and roof.  The shape of the roof is a bit off, but close enough for planning purpose.

Now I have entered the model of my new house, we can start trying different paint color and wallpaper.  We can also test run our furniture arrangement to figure out the optimal floor plan. The software also support landscaping, so we can try out how different plants in the model when we fix the gardens next spring. Making the house look pretty in the computer only needs some creativity, but making the house looks the same in reality requires some hard works.