We all love to see a good interior design solution. The Web, magazines, and the TV always have beautiful homes to display and leave us in awe of both smart ideas and simple solutions to common problems that are functional and look beautiful. However, hiring an interior designer does not come cheap, and doing all the work by yourself can prove to be too long and tedious.

After all, you may not even like your solution and may have to start all over again. This is not something that many can afford, at least time-wise. For this reason, it is time to combine technology with your own intuition and the experience you’ve gained over many hours of watching TV shows dedicated to home remodeling and renovating. 

Is Interior Design Important? 

Indeed, there are hundreds of TV shows and YouTube channels dealing with both the aesthetic and functional aspects of home design. They can provide valuable insights into the technical dimension of home interior design and can help you make the right decisions when deciding on your own decor solutions. If nothing else, they can clearly present the movements and epochs that have marked interior design and have turned it into the design we know today. 

Some of the best TV shows out there dealing with home interior design include: 

• Property Brothers;

• Flip or Flop; 

• Home Town; 

• Fixer Upper; 

• Dream Home Makeover; 

• This Old House;

• Grand Designs;

• Design on a Dime;

• Love It or List It. 

Is Interior Design Expensive? 

Although these channels can give you a very good idea of how and what solutions work well and are popular, they barely ever touch upon the pricing itself. Sure it is easy to conclude that marble countertops cost more than simple wooden ones, but the pricing of the design itself is never mentioned. Indeed, this is how even the best interior design starts, which is usually a considerable cost. As interior designers cost $50 to $500, it is necessary to know that going for the lower part of the spectrum will save money per hour, but you may be billed more hours. 

You could also consider that not all designers can meet your expectations. For this reason, and to ensure that you get the best possible solution for your existing or future home, you should have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish and how it can be accomplished. You should be ready to explain this to an interior designer so that they can do their job in a fast, efficient way without too many revisions to the initial plan, as each revision could cost a lot. 

How to Do Interior Design by Yourself? 

However, not everybody is willing to go through all the hassle, as an excellent interior design solution can easily cost more than $10,000 for the blueprint itself. For this reason, many young couples and newlyweds decide to do some of the work independently and save a significant portion of their money. You should be able to do exactly this, but you should be prepared to invest a lot of time and nerves. 

There are many both online and offline solutions that can help you with interior home design. An expensive and very technical solution offered by CADdetails.com may be too much for simple use for home solutions. While it is perfect for businesses and all those dealing with design professionals, you may be much better off simply using available apps and online platforms which charge on a per-project basis. This way, you save money but can still benefit and enjoy many hours saved. 

Top 10 Apps for Interior Design 

As there is an app for everything today, interior design is not an exception here. Indeed, apps can make the work much easier, and VR and ER solutions make it easier than ever to visualize the end results and to ensure that you can visualize your project even before you start working on it. 

If you do not like your outcomes or what the apps say your end results will look like, you should understand that you can always start over. This is easy, at least during the planning stage. Later on, it may prove to be more difficult to manage. Similarly to good skills found in i writing, interior design takes time to perfect. The more you practice and the more inspiration you look for, the better the results that you can expect. 

1. Pinterest 

Pinterest, although not a design app per se, is a great place to look for inspiration. Tens of millions of users on Pinterest add content to their feeds daily, and many of these are likely to match your own personal taste. Brutalism, neoliberalism, classicism, everything can be found on Pinterest. 

2. Planner 5D 

Planner 5D is another app that has both the free and Pro (paid) versions. The app is streamlined for iOS and desktop users and will be perfect for beginners. It allows you to choose from templates or start from scratch. One of the biggest advantages of the app is the ability to choose floor materials and colors, which is something that other apps offer in their paid version. 

3. CarpetRight Visualizer 

CarpetRight Visualizer is another useful app that is highly specialized. Namely, CarpetRight Visualizer can help you see what new flooring would look like in your home. With this useful app, you can choose between hardwood, laminate, carpet, and vinyl flooring, and you can add it as a layer on top of your existing photos. 

4. Color Snap 

Color Snap is a perfect solution for all who do not want to spend days looking for a perfect color palette for their home. For as long as you can find the right color palette anywhere, including the Internet, homes in your area, or even your workspace, you can use the app to find the exact hues used. This way, you can find the paint you are interested in with any paint company. 

5. DesignHome

DessignHome is not an app but rather a game. It is a good way to pass the time as you serve the orders of other people and get a sense of how you can combine different elements for an aesthetically pleasing outcome. You can also get some creative ideas and see what the market demands. 

6. HomeByMe

HomeByMe is a completely free interior design app. It allows you to choose actual products which exist on the market. This way, you can have your design real-world ready as soon as you finalize the project in the app. As the app is free, the question of their funding arises — companies pay to have their own products placed in the app repertoire. 

7. IKEA Place 

IKEA Place is a great app that allows you to see what the furniture you would like to buy would look like in your home. The app uses ER and your smartphone camera to show what your home could look like with as little as a few taps on the screen. Free and simple to install, the app is a definite way to go for most beginners in home interior design.

8. SketchUp

SketchUp is a free tool for 3D design. It will help you make the design quickly, and it offers an immersive experience that lets you design in a pen-and-paper type of environment. The paid version is available to professionals, although the free version will be just enough if you plan to design a single home. 

9. FloorPlanner

FloorPlanner is an excellent tool for designing the floor outlay of your new home. The app is beginner-friendly and allows you to toggle between 2D and 3D views. So, once the floor plan is over, you can switch to 3D mode and start developing the interior of your home from a more human-like perspective. 

10. SmartDraw 

SmartDraw is a solution similar to FloorPlanner, with the added benefit of having more elements that you can include in the floor plan. You should be able to finish your project in the first seven days after installation, as the app is only free for this period. It is perfect for quick takes and plans and will enable you to see the desired space in both bird-eye perspectives as well as tilted 3D. 

Final Consideration 

Interior design is not as difficult as it may seem, especially if you would like to redo your own space. With tons of inspiration to draw from, you can truly satisfy any of your design needs. And with appropriate apps, you will also be able to test your ideas and see which works and which does not. For this reason, revise our recommendations and head on to new battles.

Author Bio : Jodi Williams loves the media and spends hours a week watching TV shows and movies. This is more than a hobby; it is a way to pass the time during boring afternoons. In any case, this lover of media and all things beautiful would love to have an interior design agency of her own one day.