Can AI Redesign Your Home?

There's no doubt about it, AI applications are gathering steam and beginning to permeate many aspects of our lives and careers. How about home design? As many home buyers discover, sometimes it's hard to visualize how a room might look when someone else's furnishings and décor stand in the way. Similarly, a home seller may be looking for improvement ideas for resale. AI to the rescue!

I recently had the opportunity to take three home design apps for a test drive. My approach was simple, "How easy is it for each of these apps to replace furniture in one room?" As you'll see below, my results were varied. Let's dive in!

The first AI app on my list was Remodel AI. This app gives users the option of making changes to things like flooring, walls, paint, furniture and more. There are various design and architectural styles to choose from. This tool is free to use a few times per month. Paid subscriptions are available to those who may need to use it more frequently, such as real estate agents or designers.

Upon opening the app, I was given several choices: Interior Remodel, Paint Explorer, New Flooring, New Walls, Reskin, Replace and Interior Editor (meant for advanced users). In this exercise, I opted to replace the coffee table in the lower right corner of the picture.

For a quick swap-out of specific furniture, I found this to be a simple tool to use. The picture above is one of several images it created (all variations of a similar wood grain look). The free version watermarks the image. I did also briefly try the re-paint tool and it was also easy to use, though it did have trouble distinguishing between the wall and vaulted ceiling.

Room AI was next on my list and the one with which I had the greatest struggle. This app asks you to upload a picture and then select the room type (office, kitchen, etc...) and then a style (farmhouse, modern, etc...). I found the room type choices to be too narrow. For example, I saw no options for living room or great room. The picture it generated from the same original photo, well...you'll see below...

When the picture was generated, it took me a minute to realize the the app had rotated it on its side. I realized afterwards that the software prefers landscape pictures. However, right side up still resembles an Escher drawing. As a consumer, I became quickly frustrated and deleted the app.

REimagineHome was the only program I used directly from the website. There are lots of tools to be found here: virtual staging, landscaping, object removal, sky replacement, decluttering and more. It took me a couple tries to get it right, but I enjoyed the results of this app the most. Instead of changing one piece of furniture, it changed them all using the virtual staging tool.

The free version allows up to 30 output images per month. Please note that you can only use the AI Virtual Staging tool with the free version. Of the three programs, this appears to be the only one without a watermark. The starter subscription is $49 per month and allows up to 300 images and comes with their plethora of tool offerings.

With a little practice and some trial-and-error, these AI tools can come in handy. They can produce a bevvy of "what-if" visualizations of your home's spaces. I'm confident that the available tools will become smarter and more conversational as the technology improves. However, there's no substitute for the astute eye of your professional real estate agent or designer. It's always a good idea to reach out when you have questions!