Thinking of remodeling? In planning your venture, you might want to make a trip to the hardware store and the software store.
That`s ”software,” as in computers.
A number of software companies have jumped into the $104 billion-a-year home-improvement products market with software programs aimed at do-it-yourselfers who aren`t afraid to number a personal computer among their handiest tools.
The new programs, offering functions that range from floor plan layout to landscape design, draw on Computer Assisted Design and Drafting (CADD)
technology used by professional designers and architects, though functions have been simplified to make the programs practical and more user-friendly.
And cheaper. While professional CADD programs might cost between $400 and $3,000, a recent scan of the software shelves at computer products stores turned up nearly a dozen affordable design programs-most in the $60 to $100 range-for homeowners who want to try their hand (via computer keyboard and mouse) at designing a kitchen, bath, yard or home.
Real estate computer programs have long been available to consumers, though most of those software packages have concentrated on financial computing functions such as figuring mortgages, managing investment properties and analyzing loans. Only in recent months have such home and yard design programs been so randomly accessible to consumers.
While many of the programs are available at computer products stores, the companies that produce the home-planning programs are trying to make inroads into building supply stores and home centers, though few such stores stock the programs at present.
One-stop shopping
”When people are thinking about remodeling jobs, they don`t go to a computer store, they go to a home center,” says Tina Armacost, product marketing manager for Generic Software Inc., a leading designer of
professional CADD software. Last fall, Generic debuted its Home Series computer software, four programs (suggested retail price: $59.95 each) that allow do-it-yourselfers to turn a personal computer into an architectural drawing tool.
”Our company has built its success pioneering professional design software for architects and engineers,” says Pete O`Dell, Generic`s president. ”But we also identified a need for software that catered to the home hobbyist.”
The Home Series programs-named Home, Kitchen, Bathroom and Landscape for their individual design applications-operate on standard IBM PCs or compatibles and produce plans accurate enough for construction use, although local building codes may require a signed drawing by a licensed architect before granting a building permit. Such drawings can add $200 to $500 to a project, according to architects` estimates.
Homeowners using the Home Series draw the basic floor plan or landscape on the computer screen, with the programs providing tools for designing, measuring, labeling and calculating square footage as well as wall heights and widths. Pre-drawn pictures of objects, ranging from furniture to electrical outlets inside and from sprinklers to plants outdoors, can be placed and arranged with the aid of a computer ”mouse.”
The Kitchen, Bathroom and Landscape programs generate a ”shopping list” of appliances, cabinets, plants and other items that you can take along to the store, and the Landscape program also delivers its own version of a ”growth feature” that can produce a view of the area after one or more years to ensure proper placement between plants and bushes.
The growth feature, along with one that displays the characteristics of various regional flora, are also key features of landscaping software produced by Abracadata, a Eugene, Ore., software company.
Inside and out
Abracadata publishes the Design Your Own Home series, which includes programs titled Interiors, Landscapes and Architecture (suggested retail:
$99.95), for both IBM and MacIntosh. Each program includes sample plans and a tryout section to get started, plus reference cards and help functions.
The Design Your Own Home series also includes a number of companion Libraries (suggested price: $29.95 each) that allow you to plug in specific styles, like the regional landscaping images, into each of the programs. Each of the four architecture libraries, for example, contains 48 floor plans and sideviews of Tudors, Cape Cods, A-frames and other house styles, allowing the user a kind of computerized version of flipping through home plan magazines.
Though the Design Your Own Home series consists of three stand-alone programs, they can also be used together: You can start a design in Architecture, import it to Interiors for a furnishing plan, import it to Landscape for a yard, then view the total design package.
Integration of programs is an important feature of the new consumer CADD- type programs, according to Henry Price, executive vice president and chief operating officer of ComputerEasy International Inc., based in Tempe, Ariz.
ComputerEasy`s Floor Plan Plus (suggested retail: $79.95) not only allows users to export sketches to more common programs like WordPerfect and Windows, but it can also be integrated with the company`s own Estimator Plus program to help calculate labor and materials costs. From there, estimates can be plugged into a budgeting program, says Price, adding, ”once the escrow account has been opened, you can plug the information into a check-writing program and let it take care of the rest.”
In-store technology
Even if you don`t own a personal computer, some of the software design technology is available to do-it-yourselfers at some home centers.
Courtesy Home Centers and Builders Square both offer a free computer-design service for kitchen remodelers who shop there. Customers can bring in rough sketches with wall-to-wall measurements, indicating doors and windows, plumbing and gas lines, and the size and location of appliances, and a store employee can generate accurate floor plans and alternative designs. Depending on how complicated the design is, the service can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.
Builders Square created its custom-designed software program in conjunction with the two cabinet manufacturers whose products the San Antonio- based home center sells, and sales representatives in the kitchen department are trained to work on the computer.
”It`s usually easier for us to do the design than for somebody to go out and spend fifty or a hundred bucks on a program that they`ll have to spend time learning how to use, and then they`ll only use it once,” says Bob Evanson, a sales representative for Courtesy Home Center, which has six stores in the Chicago area. ”Plus, our systems cost a lot more than a hundred bucks.”
Having a skilled hand to computer-draw your plans can make a difference, too. One rap on the new design programs is similar to criticisms heard when the first affordable desk-top publishing programs hit the market, putting powerful graphic arts tools in the hands of amateurs: Technology alone doesn`t equal good design.
To put it another way: A software drawing program with CADD features probably won`t make you a Frank Lloyd Wright of floppy disks. Nor will it handle subcontractors or building inspectors.
”If people are thinking that a CADD-type system will design a building or remodel a kitchen for them, that`s a misconception,” says architect Thomas Kapusta, partner in the Chicago firm Damato/Kapusta Associates. ”Basically, what a CADD system does is perform your drafting for you, but it doesn`t do your thinking. If you need to know how big a beam you`ll need to hold the house up, or understand the building code, a CADD system won`t do that for you.”
In fact, if either the code interpretation or structural engineering on a project is more than a minor consideration, you`ll probably need to hire an architect, experts say.
Simplifying your life
But for simple remodeling jobs, the best of the new software programs could be an asset, replacing the old pencil and grid paper routine and letting users fiddle with placement of specific items-such as where to place the dishwasher in the kitchen-without running up architect bills for interim sketches.
”If you were going to make a sketch of your kitchen, and put together a drawing to rip out existing cabinets and put new ones in, move the sink over a foot, put in a dishwasher and a few other basic remodeling tasks, then the system probably would yield returns,” says Kapusta. ”If you`re capable of making those decisions, then the drawing that communicates the decision to other people is what the computer system does best,” he says, adding that such tasks would likely not require an architect.
”Really, when you think about it, what`s the difference if a homeowner were to use a CADD-type system to draw or if he were to buy a drafting table and do it that way?” says Kapusta. ”In the end, a drawing is a drawing, and what makes it right is whether or not it was appropriately conceived.”
