Home Designer Pro

I love Home Designer Pro. I tried out the free download which had many limitations. The primary limitation was you could not save your work. I drew the house so many times, I could draw it fast and almost in my sleep. I began taking screen shots and putting them in power point presentations.

At one point we felt my plans were sufficient to build from, but as much as I wanted to believe I could do this, I am not an architect and the decisions regarding dimensions, engineering and site planning were far more critical to a successful project, so we worked with my husband’s brother Art, who is a structural engineer and an architect he works with, Michael Hill.

While the application is great and would be good for someone who is an architect to create 3D images etc., the lay person cannot create a full set of architectural plans from this application without extensive understanding of building processes and architectural elements. I could play with this software for hours, and if I were to take some of their courses, I am sure I could be an armchair architect, but I don’t have enough projects to justify the purchase.

I would love to have a version that is not full but a planning version I could print from. I know many people who would benefit from this and while the trial version is very helpful, the inability to save is frustrating. I would have willingly paid for a simple planning version but could not afford the full version.

I still learned a lot and knew my house plans inside and out before giving it to an architect to draw.