Home Design Concept to Reality Workflow

[GregB]

I think you might benefit from my learning experience looking for a similar product. Like you, I am working on a major remodel of my own house and/or possibly designing a new house. I work in construction and have been using CAD for almost 30 years. I was an AutoCAD dealer in the 1980s.

What are the building standards and what type of construction will you be using for your home? This may be very different than the standards in North America and it may be important that the software is adaptable to this construction. Are there building codes involved?

What computer and operating system are you using?

I think what you want is something that will let you play with your ideas and then see how it would look. I assume you also want to be able to make changes easily and try that out.

I can tell you that Home Designer lets you do that pretty well. IF you need more, they give you full credit on that toward Chief Architect. That is my original plan. Home Designer Pro seems exactly like Chief X4 with less functions available. I can open my HDP drawings directly in Chief. The professionals that said they would take your ideas and start over make sense, particularly if you have extensive requirements for codes, permits, etc. East Africa must have changed a lot recently if that is true.

I have tried Softplan 2012, playing with the demo for 50 hours or so. I can see where a residential builder might prefer that to Chief but the ability to move things around and play with different ideas seems more difficult than Chief.

Unless you have played with ideas on paper a bunch, you are likely in the early idea stage and even a lower end product from Chief like Home Designer Architectural (around $200) might get you started. Chances are you are going to start over several times anyway.

Do you need to print drawings? I am used to printing good sized drawings and only being able to print 18x24" with HDP is a problem for me.