Anyone here ever use/know of a good home design program?

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I know this is probably a long shot here, but you never know when someone might be able to help so I figured I’d ask. :gotme:

I am looking for a home design program that will have alot of features and flexibility in letting me design a floor plan and layout for a home (whether from scratch or modifying an existing plan), as well as deciding where the home will be built on the actual lot with respect to the dimensions of the land that its being built on.

Ideally, I’d also like for this program to also be able to spit out some rough $ estimates for building materials and other costs once I input the style of the house, square footage, room sizes, types of floors, windows, etc etc etc… So for example, if i say i want to build a 2000sq ft ranch, it could tell me to expect roughly X amount of dollars for lumber costs, and x amount of dollars for adding a cathedral ceiling to a certain size room, and so on so forth.

Anyone have any idea what would work best for what I am looking for? I googled it and came up with a bunch of different options, but I am unsure of what’s what as far as something like this is concerned since this is all breaking new ground for me. (literally :stuck_out_tongue: )

At this point I am just trying to see if there is even a program out there that will let me do everything ive just described.

It seems like Home and Garden has a few pretty sweet sounding programs, but they are kind of getting up there in price. However if that’s what I need to get to meet my needs, then that’s what I will do. :shrug:

Just figured I would throw this out there, maybe some of you homeowners out there have looked into something like this before, or know someone who has been there and done that. :tup:

Thanks in advance for any help doods! http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/87FOXGT/koolaid.gif

Edit: Just came across this…

http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/products/homedesignerpro/

Looks pretty damn sweet. But for 500 bones, i wonder if there are better options out there?

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:):):):):):):):):slight_smile:

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Trust me man, unless you are hell bent on designing your own home, its going to be way way more money than just going by one of the builders premade templates, and letting the builder build a house.

I’d even go as far as only buying a prebuilt house. This way you don’t surprise yourself by ordering upgrade after upgrade that you really don’t need.

I’m looking at buying a new house in phoenix, and its amazing the difference between buying one thats prebuilt, or having one built to your specs.

Plus if there is a girlfriend involved or whatever, FOR SURE they will bitch and bitch until they get certain upgrades.

When you buy a prebuilt house, you avoid all of this.

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Mike, if you are interested in quick renderings, I can lay out and render materials in a house in about 30mins. I’d be happy to work with you on something…

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[quote=“audios,post:2,topic:24677"”]

:):):):):):):):):slight_smile:

[/quote]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v181/87FOXGT/hugsmiley.gif :smiley:

[quote=“JustinH,post:3,topic:24677"”]

Trust me man, unless you are hell bent on designing your own home, its going to be way way more money than just going by one of the builders premade templates, and letting the builder build a house.

I’d even go as far as only buying a prebuilt house. This way you don’t surprise yourself by ordering upgrade after upgrade that you really don’t need.

I’m looking at buying a new house in phoenix, and its amazing the difference between buying one thats prebuilt, or having one built to your specs.

Plus if there is a girlfriend involved or whatever, FOR SURE they will bitch and bitch until they get certain upgrades.

When you buy a prebuilt house, you avoid all of this.

[/quote]

Yeah, I definitely can understand where you’re coming from man. Thanks for the input. However in my situation, I have much more flexibility with what I can do because of the contacts that I have. Much of the work will be done by friends of my family’s and me. Customizing a home wont have nearly as much impact on the price as it would for the next guy who has to go through the typical contracting channels to get stuff built.

And besides, theres a very good chance I may find a premade plan i really like, and all i will do is maybe move a wall here, take a door out of the way there, modify it slightly as i see fit, and be done with it. :tup:

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[quote=“vq30de,post:4,topic:24677"”]

Mike, if you are interested in quick renderings, I can lay out and render materials in a house in about 30mins. I’d be happy to work with you on something…

[/quote]

Thanks a bunch for the offer man, I appreciate it! :tup: But right now I am still ways out from breaking ground, I would just like to start looking at some plans, getting an idea of what I like, and then taking what I like and running with it to see what I can do to make it ideal for me. But I will defff keep your offer in mind, the time may come when I may need a hand getting something to look how I want it to look :tup:

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Used this years ago, was known as the best then… Haven’t kept up recently though.

http://www.punchsoftware.com/index.htm

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Hmm that looks pretty good too, and user friendly, thanks man. I need to check out a demo of the better homes stuff and see how it compares to this.

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search for chief architect. IT is a very powerful tool. There are even .torrent avail for download on it!

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:tup: thanks man, i will look into it as well. ive got a few things coming down the pipeline im gonna play with when i get home later today :tup:

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Good for you mike.

Where are you looking to build?

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if you’re looking to have it done, I can help.

if you want software to mess around with to do it yourself, there are many programs avalible for it. Architectural desktop, autocad, solid works, ect can all do it.

:tup: good luck man

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Good deal for floorplan software

http://www.buy.com/prod/FloorPlan_3D_v_11_Remodel_Home_Design/q/loc/105/202791986.html?adid=17662

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I’m going to start doing something like this for my current house. I plan on adding a 2 car garage between the eastern side of the house and the pole barn. Above the garage would be another rec room/office/mini apartment and then during that construction, a second floor added to the house for the master bedroom, master bath, and a killer closet. This way I still have at least 3 bedrooms, all decent sized, and at least 1 office. Then I can have my cheap(er) toys in the barn, and the cars/trucks in the garage.

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[quote=“JustinH,post:11,topic:24677"”]

Good for you mike.

Where are you looking to build?

[/quote]

Thanks. :smiley: I close on a lot in April in the lancaster area. I like it out here, not far from the citay, and I have plenty of room to build everything I want to build without having a Fucillo huge lot to maintain like my rents do with their 8 acres. :tup: Not to mention I can hit the snowmobile trails right out of the backyard so no need to trailor the sled out anywhere in order to go and do some riding. :wink: But most importantly I dont have neighbors right up my ass watching everything that goes on in my yard like say for example naked people sliding down a slip and slide :gotme:

Jack,

Sound like a good plan. Let me know if you want some software to play with, I got my hands on the Better Homes and Garden Home Designer Suite 6.0, and it’s pretty sweet. I am just starting to learn my way around it, there are soooo many features, i’t’s the hot fireeee :smiley: