5 Essential Mobile Apps for Home Planning and Interior Design

Home design planning is a great way to take control of your home's interior aesthetic. Since it's the place you spend the most time, it's worth sprucing it up every so often.

Thanks to the apps featured below, you can design your home quickly and easily from your smartphone.

1. Home Design 3D

Home Design 3D is a capable offering that allows you to plan the interior and exterior of your home. The app allows you to either create a project with an entirely blank canvas or select from preset options such as Family House, Holiday House, Vintage Garage Loft, and more.

Through the transparent directional buttons in the left corner of the app, you can move around the home. A menu on the right lets you select between 2D and 3D, plus traverse around floors.

From the menu on the left while in 3D view, you can select between Architecture, Objects, and Textures. This allows you to add new elements to the home design and place them in any position you want, in any room of the house.

The 2D model brings up a blueprint of the house, along with the dimensions of each room that you can alter as you please. Through the left menu, you can choose to enable or disable Land Tracing, Room Drawing, and Wall Drawing.

Related: The Best Free Online Interior Design Courses You Can Take Right Now

Finally, the menu at the top allows you to enable/ disable Snap, Sizing, and Multi-Selection. Through the Community tab, you can discover design ideas from other members of the app, or share the project you've made with the community.

The Shopping Cart icon allows you to unlock the full version, while the Question Mark icon takes you to a comprehensive tutorial with text and video options available. Lastly, the three-doticon allows you to import or print a blueprint, view your project in AR, and share the project or share a project screenshot.

Download: Home Design 3D for iOS | Android (Free, in-app purchases available)

2. Live Home 3D

Live Home 3D has a simple UI, yet offers comprehensive planning of a home interior through a 3D view. By allowing you to work on one room at a time, its simple approach will ensure you don't become overwhelmed.

The app allows you to choose a template, with the three blank options providing scales of 1:50, 1:100, or 1:25. There are also sample rooms you can choose from.

Your project opens in 2D, offering a dynamic blueprint of the room that lets you change elements around as you see fit. Switching to 3D allows you to move any of the elements around, with a transparent directional wheel in the left corner. A slider just to the right of that controls how high up, or low down, you view the room from. Finally, you can use a "pinching" gesture with your fingers to zoom in and out.

The top menu has a number of useful tabs and is where the main bulk of the options reside. For instance, there's a tab that helps you import blueprints or export the in-app blueprint, a help button that brings up various tutorials, and more.

Download: Live Home 3D for iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

3. Keyplan 3D Lite

Keyplan 3D is a colorful and simple app that makes home designing fun, as well as quick and easy.

When opening the app for the first time, it will give you a few quick guides to ensure you've gotten to grips with the app. It'll also ask whether you want to store project data via iCloud or locally.

The free version only allows you to make a new plan from scratch; purchasing the full version gives you access to demo projects.

When in a project, the Home icon in the top-left corner takes you back to your project list, the Build icon in the top right corner allows you to turn on/off Objects Magnet, Walls Magnet, Measurements, etc. and uses sliders to change the width and height of walls. The House icon in the bottom-right corner takes you to the Store, with different pricing options depending on what you're looking for.

Finally, the bottom toolbar has three tabs: Drawing Mode (which can be enabled or disabled), and an Armchair icon which brings up many different types of furniture. And the Blueprint icon allows you to switch between 2D and 3D.

Download: Keyplan 3D Lite for iOS (Free, in-app purchases available) | Keyplan 3D for iOS ($5.99, in-app purchases available)

4. Houzz

Houzz is a home renovation social media app centered on architecture, home design, and renovation. It offers you pictures of renovated home interiors, the chance to connect with a particular home improvement professional, and a discussion board to chat about your home renovation plans or experiences with other users.

When first opening the app, you'll be invited to create an account, then select whether you're a homeowner or a professional in the home improvement market.

Through the top menu, you can view Photos of renovated rooms, or head to the Pros tab where you'll answer a series of questions and add your postal code to obtain a list of local professionals. Meanwhile, Stories has a stream of Houzz blogs available to read, and Discussions lets you talk with other users of the app.

The bottom menu has four tabs: Home, Notifications, Ideabooks, and Profile.

Download: Houzz for iOS | Android (Free)

5. Pinterest

Pinterest is a lifestyle social media that allows you to save images to Boards—ranging from healthy eating recipes to home design.

This is an extremely popular site, so you've probably heard of it before or even use it already. The home design community on Pinterest is very popular, making it very likely you'll find images to give you ideas on how to spruce up your home design.

On your profile icon on the bottom menu, you can press the Plus icon at the top-right corner to create a pin or a board. Select Board and give it a name, such as "Interior Design." Then, tap the Search icon on the bottom menu to search for home design-related images and add them to that board. This makes it easy to find them again in the future.

There are also Pinterest alternatives to consider using if, for whatever reason, Pinterest doesn't do the job for you.

Download: Pinterest for iOS | Android (Free)

Home Sweet Home With Your Phone

Home design and planning are much easier thanks to the apps featured here. With a mixture of planning and community apps, you'll have a much easier time making any necessary adjustments to your home.

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