Sweet Home 3D is an open source utility that enables you to create your own design plans for your house or rooms.
You have access to several sample projects, a comprehensive help manual, and a straightforward interface. So, you won't need much computer and architectural design experience in order to work with this tool.
Once you finish delimiting the rooms of your house, simply drag-and-drop the elements you need over your home plan. You can include elements such as furniture pieces, electronics, kitchen items, and many others. The program enables you to adjust the size of the included elements and rearrange them whenever you see fit.
Another great advantage is the fact that the utility provides you with 2D and 3D view modes. Plus, once you finish altering your project, you can print your home design directly from the program's interface.
A couple of things bother me about this tool: its Mac App Store provides you with more features (but with a cost), it supports a few file formats when exporting your designs, and the fact that you need to install an additional program in order to work with Sweet Home 3D (Java).
Still, Sweet Home 3D is a free utility that might come in handy to both beginner and professional architects or home designers. It's feature-rich, works OK, and is intuitive.
Pros
- Compatible with many macOS versions (10.4 -> 10.12)
- Comes with a comprehensive help manual
- Provides you with multiple drawing tools
- Compatible with many measuring units
- Available in various languages
- You can print your designs directly from the program's interface
Cons
- The Mac App Store version brings you more furniture elements
- You need to install Java in order to run and use the utility
- Supports a small amount of output formats when exporting projects
This program is very easy to handle. You can quickly make a plan of furniture placing in your flat.
The given set of furniture was enough for me to illustrate where each object will be placed in my future flat. Besides, the program is definitely helpful when you are moving to a new flat or building a house. Even if you are not a professional designer, you can visualize your ideas and discuss them with the designers later.
Found it useful when I was moving furniture around the house. The plan in 3D allows you to see how your room will look like with chairs, shelves, etc. and to think of possible changes before you've began moving your real wardrobe. Yet I found it rather uncomfortable to have a narrow set of furniture available to operate with.