Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Description:

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer review:
1 stars (Helpful only in designing boxes with roofs) - This product was a horrible waste of my money.

There is no option for log houses, which I find surprising. This is afterall, far from an alternative building style.



It seems as though this product was made for those with little or no creaativity, seeking to create another ugly box like all those that already exist all over the nation.



Don't waste your money!
3 stars (Lots of work, little reward) - I was very anxious to recieve this product. I reviewed various products and this seemed to be the one to buy for the price. At this point I'm not disappointed I bought it, just disappointed at some of the limitations. I was looking to do basic, accurate floor plans, i.e. kitchens. With this product you're forced to design a house and then focus on a specific room. I live in an area where there are alot of raised houses. A raised foundation/house on piers is not an option. I will say that it has a nice selection of finishes, though many of them look too similar to tell a difference. Overall, it's a decent product and not a bad buy.
3 stars (Limited Capability-Not for remodeling) - When I read the other reviews on this product, I was a bit surprised at their very positive nature. Then I remembered how I felt when I first tried this program and it all made sense. My guess is that the folks who wrote the positive reviews probably haven't worked with the program for very long or tried to create anything but the most elementary structures. I know I was very impressed at first. That is until I tried to re-create my own home as the starting point for a remodeling project.



This program is very intuitive and easy to learn, the problem is that it is also very limited. After you get past the ease of creating floor plans, the next obvious progression is to see the building in 3D. That's where the problems begin. The roof planes are nearly impossible to control. If you are creating anything other than a simple cape or ranch, you will quickly see how un-nerving this program can be.



Since most homes are comprised of several sections, controlling how the roof planes associated with those sections are generated is critical if you are to be able to create an end product that resembles what you had in mind. This program takes almost all of the roof plane control away from the user. The program generates the roof planes based on a few user defined parameters. This results in 3D images that almost never match what I had in mind.



Just for the record, I'm not technologically impaired. I am an engineer by trade. If I can't get it to work, then the average user is likely going to have even more trouble. In the end, if you can't get an accurate 3D model from this program that resembles what you are trying to create, then why spend the money or the time on this program. Just get a $10 floor plan program or jump up to the $500 version of this Chief Architect program which, as I've been told (haven't used it myself) , is very capable.