Review by Koala1356

I am a complete newcomer to CAD and home design software, but I have always had the idea in my head that if I could draw my house on my computer, then I could see what interior design and exterior landscaping changes would look like prior to actually doing them. So I was excited to have a chance to review Chief Architect Home Designer Architectural 10 via Amazon Vine.

Make no mistake; this is serious home interior and exterior design (CAD) software, with loads of professional tools and features, and packed with thousands of items and choices to build your current home inside your computer, add a deck, or landscaping, or design your future dream home from the ground up. But it’s also incredibly fun, addictive, and (most of all) easy to use. Even for someone like me, with no prior experience in home design software.

Before I started, I spent an hour or so watching the online tutorials to learn the basics. Next, I headed to my county’s property appraisal website, found my lot in the city records, and printed out my exterior dimensions. I opened a new floor plan, and quickly transferred those exterior dimensions to it. Architectural 10 asks you to draw exterior walls in a clockwise direction, so it can add the siding on the outside. You can adjust the thickness of these walls, and all the materials used.

Next came the fun (?) part; measuring all the rooms of my house and adding them to the floor plan. After a few hours, I had a perfect ‘dollhouse’ model of my house (although I am still working on the tutorial about roofs!). I added paint and flooring to match, and then the first room I started to decorate in was my kitchen. I added cabinets, sink, fridge, dishwasher etc, all custom-altered to match my kitchen right down to the pulls on the drawers. The program allows you to take any element and customize it however you like; not just furniture, but walls, roofs, wood framing, doors, windows–everything! The result was a virtual replica of my kitchen, ready for resigning to my dream kitchen.

As you build up a floor plan in Architectural 10, you have numerous ways to view it. Dollhouse is just that (like you’ve lifted off the roof and can see down into your rooms); Glasshouse (see-through walls), Frame (just the timber framing) etc etc. If you want to look at something specific, you can place a camera in a static position, and pan round a room or hall or outside deck. In addition, you can record a walk-through from a first person point of view, and share that with others. My computer is three years old (although running Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and with a fairly recent graphics card), and I found all the views drew in incredibly fast, almost instantly. I will list my computer specs at the end of this review. The software runs great on my computer; I am also uploading a scan of the box back cover to show the recommended system specs.

Some cool features of Architectural 10 include the materials list. You can budget for any house plan this way, adding the cost of items used in your design (flooring, windows, door handles etc), and then the program will generate a cost list based on the number of that item you use in your plan. You’ll know (practically down to the last nail) how much that dream house, or deck, or addition, will cost to build before you even start it.

Another cool feature is the ability to import a photo of your street to use as a background image. If you just want to do some exterior landscaping, there’s also an option of importing a photo of your house (front, back, side, etc) for use as the background, and then use the flower and tree menus to build your idea lawn and garden. For the horticulturist, Architectural 10 even has a feature where you can age plants, so you can see exactly how tall that tree or shrub will be in ten years!nnAt this price point, Chief Architect Home Designer Architectural 10 might scare away beginners and/or casual users, which is a pity because it really has a lot of professional tools and features wrapped up into an accessible package where experience is not necessarily needed to start designing and planning your next home or addition.

About the only negative thing I can think of to say about Chief Architect Home Designer Architectural 10 is that during installation process, it asks you to fill out your particulars, then PRINT AND MAIL a registration form! Who does that in this day and age? Couldn’t it be via email at least? Also, all the Library content (items, paint colors, floor coverings, plants etc etc) must be downloaded before you can use them, but you can do this all in one go, or as you want to use something (provided you are connected to the internet).

In closing, I will say that if you’ve ever wanted to try doing something like this and are okay with the price, then consider this software a great investment of your time and imagination … and then get out your tape measure!nnMy computer specs:n* Window 7 Professional (64-bit)n* Intel Core2 6700@ 2.66gHz CPUn* 4gb RAMn* nVidia GTX 260 video card