Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 [OLD VERSION]

Customer Reviews

Works for me!

2008-03-13
I bought this program after giving up on Punch. Wow! What an improvement. First off I haven't noticed the massive number of bugs that were in Punch. Secondly this program is much easier to use. It does take some getting use to and requires a bit of computer savvy. However I was well into designing my house within a day after buying it. My biggest recommendation is to make good use of the video tutorials and documentation. They are invaluable in getting up to speed. I have noticed a few negative comments here and I think some of them are based on lack of understand of the software. For instance I did not have near the trouble with roofs that some folks here evidently did. Again, USE THE VIDIOS AND DOCUMENTATION.

Not Easy

2008-01-14
Steep learning curve, not easy to use, plus they make you use a key in one of your USB ports at all times when you want to use the software. As a paying customer this type Key offends me. I have other things pluged into my usb ports, so looking for this little key all the time is a pain. Besides I paid good money for the program.

Amazing Program

2007-08-01
Home Designer Pro 7.0 is addictive. Watching your home "come to life" in 3-D color is absolutely amazing. Even though the software tackles extraordinarily complicated functions, most of them are shielded by intuitive icons. For example, there's the parent/child concept. "Wall" is the "Parent" and "Child" is "Exterior" vs. "Interior" vs. "Foundation" wall. But, because the software is so powerful, plan on investing some time figuring out how the program "thinks." It's the 80/20 rule. The first time you do something complex, it takes a while. The second time, it's generally a snap. For a couple of items, I finally gave up and contacted technical support. I got immediate answers - what a pleasant surprise! The only area where I got really frustrated involved complex roof lines. So, from a "baby boomer" non-technical female who "hates" computers, this software gets an "A."

roof lines difficult

2007-07-08
I had another version of home designer and had already created my plan with it. I purchased Pro because I wanted to create plans to submit to my county for adding onto my home. I was able to use the plan I created in my lower version and use the Pro features to complete it for submission to my county building department.

Generally the program worked great. My only difficulties were with designing the roof. The auto roof feature only draws hip roofs and to make my design with only gable roofs was convoluted. I tried using their methods to get the auto roof to draw gables by labeling the walls and using the gable roof tool but I never could get the right gables and ended up placing each roof plane manually. It was more time consuming than I thought it should have been. I had a very basic addition plan and I don't think it should have been so diffiult. The auto roof feature should be able to draw other roof types. A menu choice for the auto roof feature should include both hip and gable choices and then draw them automatically with only a couple of clicks.

My next obstacle is apparently a common one and that is printing the plan in a larger format to use for submission to builders and building departments. I tried and tried to print to a pdf file as suggested but I never could get it to work right. If you have a pdf file you can use that doesn't involve advertising it would be fantastic. I finally got frustrated and talked with my county officials and they accepted my plans on regular 8.5 x 11 paper that I printed at home so I never did figure out the "print from pdf". The plans passed county review without a problem.

The purchase price of 500.00 was steep but not when compared to the home designer who was going to charge 1000.00 for the same plan I created and submitted. Now I can use it for other projects we may take on.

HOME DESIGN SOFTWARE

2007-06-13
I am very pleased with the software and it's capabilities. It is relatively user friendly but does take some time and effort to get up to speed. Happily, the time invested is well worth the results produced.

Not bad.

2007-04-10
BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS HOME DESIGNER PRO 7.0 (WIN XP)

Very Satisfied

2007-04-08
This software was relatively easy to learn & gives us a general idea with our planning. We wanted the capability to print our blueprints, which for they money is a handy feature.

it has only one thing I don't like

2007-02-16
I don't own this software yet, but this seems to do everything that a professional design software should do except, for the unbelievable price of $400, it should be able to render photorealistic images. (pictures that look like photographs) The pictures shown are awful.

Quick, versatile & Easy

2007-01-20
I just started using the 6.0 version and I'm pleased. No, it will not replace ACAD but it is a good accessory. It's good enough for zoning and concept drawings. I hate spending days on a drawing only to have it rejected. This way I can quickly get everyone in agreement on the basic plan. The walk through can save you money & time by not having to make a bunch of revisions. It's not bad for the money and I recommend it.

3D View Feature Saved Lots of Mistakes

2007-01-18
I upgraded from the previous version, Home Designer Pro 6, to the new version no. 7, because I found this program to be an excellent choice for software to design my new house.

In my previous review about Home Designer Pro 6, I stated:

I found Home Designer Pro 6 to be an excellent choice for software to design my new house. While this software does not have all the features of Chief Architect's more sophisticated software, Chief Architect 10, or AutoCad's architectural version, neither does it have the substantially higher cost. I found this software easy to use to design the floor plan. I was able to use either Home Designer Pro 6 tools or CAD tools. Since I had already drawn a house plan using AutoCad's AutoSketch software, it was easy for me to import the DXF file format into Home Designer Pro 6 and get started. My wife and I particularly found the 3D view feature to be an excellent one. Often, when we looked at all the angles of a room in our floor plan in 3D view, for example, our kitchen, we discovered that we needed or wanted to redesign the layout or size of that room. For example, we were able to view what a person would see once they entered the front door of our "new" house in a panorama of views. What we saw the first time caused us to move some walls, creating a more pleasant, "first impression" view. I would highly recommend this software to anyone planning to build a custom house. With our completed design using this software, my wife and I have something substantive that we can give to a draftsman to draw up a final set of plans. This should save us consider time and expense for drafting and get construction on our house started sooner.

My recommendations still hold. In fact, I've become a bigger fan of this program the more I use it. I can't tell you how many times I've drawn my house plan only to have my wife see the 3D view and tell me I needed to change something. It was great that she could see how the house would look once built. Our builder of custom homes for 20+ years was so impressed with my drawings that he bought a copy to use for his remodeling jobs. But, he bought a less robust version that he now regrets. He's upgrading to the Pro 7 so he can do more things, particularly the precision dimensions. I also was able to get $2,000 knock off the cost of my house plans, because the plans I'd drawn were nearly complete, except for building code requirements. And I reduced my time to get plans drawn by 60%. Again I would highly recommend this software to anyone planning to build a custom house or remodeling an existing house.