Decorating and re-furnishing my home has never been my thing. I’m not that great at it if I’m completely honest. And, if we are being honest, I do feel insanely jealous when I walk into one of my friend’s homes, which, by the way, has been newly constructed with the help of builders like Hallmark Homes Group (learn more about them from here). The reason behind this is that everything looks beautifully constructed and matched–everything looks complementary. Oh, and clean; Phoebe gets her sticky fingers/snot/puke all over everything. It’s like she’s on some sort of infant dirty protest, though she gets fed, bathed and has an endless supply of toys available, so what she’s got to complain about I can’t imagine!

But, I have come across a revolutionary tool for helping in this area. True it’s not going to enhance your ability to sniff out the right curtains that match the right rug that match the right cushions that match the right coffee table etcetera, etcetera, but it does make life a lot easier when it comes to arranging furniture, buying pieces that are the right size and checking your room still works if you have a move-around and the baby isn’t going to get trapped in a metre squared corner between a bookcase, sofa and wall.

And knowing that a piece of furniture will fit into a room is only the beginning! Knowing that you can still get access to electrical sockets, doors and windows or understanding if a drum light chandelier or a pendant light will be too big for a room, is where full planning is really useful. What happens if you buy all of your lovely new furniture and it just doesn’t look right? This is where stress levels can increase and arguments can occur.

You can now spare yourself and your family this stress with the Home by Me software.

My best friend from uni introduced me to it. She and her fiancée have just bought a brand new house (lucky buggers!) and are desperate to get everything Just Right. So, she’s been using this software to plan every room in meticulous detail, and she raves about it! She’s also one of those people who have that sixth sense of knowing what colours schemes will work and what furniture and accessories work well together. Damn her!

It’s incredibly sadistic of me but part of me – a minuscule part, in fact – can’t wait to see how their perfectly designed home fairs when the kids come along! (Cue evil laugh!)

So What is Home By Me?

Basically, this software could help you design whatever room you want to focus on by playing around with the floor plans and basic layout of your furniture etc, allowing you to choose exactly the right furniture, in the right size, for your room. This software may also be used by various home builders while designing homes for you.

What Do I Like About It?

The Home by Me software has a wealth of features that make designing a room or home as easy as possible. After taking some measurements (WARNING: basic numeracy skills required! For an English teacher, that normally isn’t good news, but even I can use a tape measure and do basic adding and subtraction!), you are able to create an accurate plan of your entire home, room by room. The software allows for multi-level plans which means you can easily switch from one floor to another as well as room to room. Great fun!

For anyone with anything fancy in their home, you can add pillars, casings and bay windows as well as electrical, gas and water points – the sort of stuff you forget to consider in your initial redecorating plans! You can even take into account the position of any radiators, which was where Steve and I fell down when we moved into our first home!

After creating your floor plan, it is easy to drag and drop the furniture from the catalogue straight to where you want it. The dropdown menus are really clearly and logically arranged by room – it’s like designing a computer-based doll’s house! The 2-dimensional view shows whether an item will fit where you want it to, whereas the 3-dimensional view shows you how the room will look once finished. Simples!

After furnishing your home on the plans, the summary section shows you the details of your project. The room by room summary gives you all of the specifications of the rooms including floor space and wall dimensions. This information can make decorating and flooring your rooms extra easy as you do not have to measure again. You will also get a summary of the products you’ve selected in a shopping list format, making your purchases easy and hassle-free!

Would I Recommend It?

Absolutely! Besides making life a heck of a lot easier when it comes to redesigning a home, it’s also heaps of fun, and it makes you think about things that might otherwise not have been considered until it’s too late, like the position of light sockets and radiators etcetera.

It’s totally free, so there’s zero harm in giving it a try!