The best apps to inspire your interior design
Have you ever looked at a room or a particular space in your home and wished you knew what it would look like with a completely new look or updated furniture? Technology now gives us the opportunity to virtually redesign our interiors from scratch, giving us a better perspective on what works and where. Since there are so many on offer we’ve put together a list of some of the best apps that can help you get started (for free) on your interior design journey in the best way.
What planning tools & apps are there for bathroom design?
72% of UK adults now own a smartphone, 25% have a tablet computer, and the numbers embracing this new technology are rising all of the time. Retailers and manufacturers, as well as the glossy magazines have been quick to jump on the app bandwagon and you can now download an app which will help you with almost anything.
If you are thinking of redesigning your bathroom, there are lots of apps out there for your smartphone or tablet which can help.
Interior design apps
- Adobe Color CC
- Houzz
- MagicPlan
- Hutch
- ColorSnap
- Sketchup Bathroom
- Bathstore 2D Tool
- Villeroy & Boch Bathroom Design Tool
- B & Q Bathroom Planner
- Interior Design Magazine Apps
- House Beautiful App (US)
- House Beautiful App (UK)
- Homes & Gardens Magazine App (UK)
- Frontline Bathrooms Planner
- Duravit Bathroom Planner
- Room Sketcher
- Better Homes & Gardens App
Adobe Color CC
If colour is what you are stuck on sign up for a free account with Adobe Color, which gives you the chance to play with endless colour schemes using the all-important colour wheel. You can select from a whole range of colours on the wheel, using red-green-blue (RGB) sliders and colour harmonies, so that you can find colours from the same family or hue and even the colours that compliment each other the best. You are given five base colours to work with, so an easy way to start is to select a colour that is either one you feel most drawn to, one of your favourites or the base wall colour you’d like to start with for your room. What’s more, you don’t just have to use a desktop. You can now get these features on iOS and Android devices with the Adobe Capture app.
Houzz
Houzz is one of the best apps on the market for interior design. In the app, available on iOS and Android, you can not only save and share ideas for your own interior and exterior design, but you can also visualise items in your room, browse and purchase furniture in the app. You can even network with other interior design enthusiasts, and hire builders and architects to work alongside you on your project, creating the ultimate interior design social network and inspiration platform.
Pinterest might be considered a social media platform, but it’s actually one of the best-loved apps for logging interior design inspiration. You can collect endless images and save them into pinboards, like virtual mood boards, that you have curated yourself, which will spark your creativity and give you plenty of original and inspiring ideas. Why not set up a board for each room of the house? Or, if you simply can’t decide on a style, make a pinboard for each style and see which one you tend to be drawn to the most. Updates to the app have made Pinterest a place to purchase items shown in particular images, so if there is a specific object or piece of furniture you just can’t resist, you can absolutely cave in on Pinterest and make the purchase.
MagicPlan
If measuring distances and floor plans are just not your thing, MagicPlan can do the difficult bits for you. All you need to do is add the objects and any necessary notes to create the floor plan of your home. When your property floor plan is ready, MagicPlan will even help you estimate the costs of materials and source them online for you. If hiring a professional isn’t in your budget, MagicPlan is a cost-effective way to help you draw up plans and room designs. It’s also available on iOS and Android operating systems for both phones and tablets.
Hutch
Hutch is a virtual design app available on Android and iOS that combines online shopping and virtual design all in one. There are endless possibilities with Hutch, giving you the chance to view a room in 3D so you can customise the furniture and decoration according to your own personal style. Hutch knows our favourite styles and interior design trends can change over time, so you can always go back and select a new favourite style and save your previous room designs for later. There’s no need to purchase everything right away though – you can easily save your favourite items to purchase another time, and any items that go on sale are marked down for you!
ColorSnap
With Colorsnap, you don’t need to pick hundreds of paint card samples in the DIY store and take them all home with you, for them to simply get lost around the house. Colour is all around us and we often like to gain ideas from the world around us, so Colorsnap, available on both iOS and Android, allow you to capture colour inspiration from anywhere. You can save it along with other colours to compliment it and refer back to it when you come to buy your chosen paint.
Now you’re equipped with some of the most helpful virtual interior design tools on the market, get searching for inspiration, both from the outside world and by placing real items into your virtual room, bringing your home to life with each additional piece of décor. By combining the use of two or more apps together, you can pull together a solid collection of interior design inspiration and truly establish your personal style.
Magazine apps for bathroom design
All of the main home interiors glossy magazines such as Your Home, Country Living and Elle Decoration publish digital editions which you can purchase online and download to your phone and tablet.
The cost of a digital download is normally around the same as the print version of between £2 an £4, but if you subscribe the cost per magazine comes down much further. Many of the magazine apps allow you to click on products you like the look of and be taken to the manufacturer or retailer’s website, and they will provide you with endless inspiration.
House Beautiful US magazine app
As America's leading home design authority, House Beautiful is a magazine for dreamers and doers packed with ideas and advice for loving your home. House Beautiful helps readers create the home of their dreams.
House Beautiful UK magazine app
House Beautiful is here to help you create the home you’ve always dreamed of. Confident, fresh, celebratory and achievable, with regular and comprehensive colour-scheming pages and a wide range of shopping suggestions for those special details that make a difference. With real reader homes from around the UK - ranging from comfortable country style to the chic city look – House Beautiful provides inspiration and practical advice whatever your decorating tastes.
Bathroom planning apps
If you’ve already thought about your design and need to work out whether your ideas are practical for your room, then computer aided design apps can help you work everything out.
CAD software is used by all of the main bathroom and kitchen design companies, and apps like Floor Plan Creator and Inard Floor Plan, both of which are free, will allow you to input the dimensions of your room and then work out how best to locate your bathroom suite.
These sorts of apps work better on tablets rather than smartphones because the screen size is larger.
Sketchup Bathroom
Sketchup Bathroom is a 3D drawing tool for interior designers. It is often used by those working in the kitchen and bathroom industries to mock up designs and walkthroughs. There is a free trial in addition to Sketchup Pro.
Bathstore free bathroom design planner
Bathstore have a free bathroom design planner. Their tool is in 2D rather than the 3D drawing tool provided by Sketchup. Users can plan a new room with Bathstore's design mine, save plans (as long as you sign up to the tool as a user) for future viewing, and, of course, if you don't want to do the planning yourself you can sign up for a planning and design consultation with one of their expert planners.
Villeroy & Boch bathroom design tool
Villeroy & Boch have produced a bathroom design tool and planner which provides an online step-by-step process. Step 1 involves creating an individual room structure. Step 2 allows you to insert windows, doors and connections. Step 3 is the bathroom planning stage where you're invited to plan your ideal bathroom. Step 4 invites you to send your plan to Villeroy & Boch. With Step 5 one of their consultants contacts you to go through your plan.
B & Q bathroom planner
B & Q's bathroom planner is a complete suite of tools for the homeowner looking to take control of their own new bathroom. The suite of tools includes their 2D and 3D sketcher tool, a 3D bathroom planner, and expert videos on bathrooms.
Frontline bathrooms planning suite
Frontline's suite for planning is less comprehensive than that of B & Q but they have a 3D planner amongst their brochure set and product guides.
Ikea planner tool
Ikea's tool cannot really be described as a planner as such. It is really more a product listing page with items from their stock. It certainly doesn't fare well when compared with some of the more intuitive and interactive tools already covered above.
Duravit templates and plans
Duravit have a huge range of tools to help you plan your bathroom. These include templates and professional plans already pre-created. However, they don't appear to have a sketch up type planner or a 3D planning suite like some of the others mentioned above.
Room Sketcher
Room Sketcher has a complete home designer tool. You can use this to create room plans for your bathroom and other parts of your home. Their suite claims to be a complete room design and floor planner suite.with easy to use floor plans and providing the ability to visualise your dream bathroom. You can try different layouts as you choose and see how different designs, materials and products will look in situ. Step one is drawing your floor plan. Step two is furnishing the bathroom. Step three is turning the bathroom design into a 3D experience so you can get an idea of how it will look in real life.
Photo library apps for bathroom design
There are many other apps which allow you to browse through pictures of what both professional interior designers and enthusiastic amateurs have done with their bathrooms.
Pinterest is a good starting point, and also check out apps such as Homestyler Interior Design and Houzz Interior design which are free to download and are packed with millions of pictures showing you bathroom designs and bathroom suites to suite every taste and budget.
Browse around iTunes or the Google Play Store to see what apps are available, and you can also check out the reviews before you decide to download.
Bathroom suite retail apps
Many of the large bathroom retailers such as B&Q or Screwfix have their own apps which are free to download to your phone or tablet. Some will allow you to buy through the app directly from your phone, others just act as an interactive catalogue allowing you to explore pictures and see videos about your chosen items.
Even apps like Ebay or Amazon can be useful when looking for a new bathroom suite, especially when sourcing vintage or second hand items and when buying smaller items like mirrors or taps.
Always check that you are on a secure network before inputting credit card details on a phone or tablet.
