5 helpful home renovation apps

It’s exciting to dream about renovating your first home, but at the same time, the reality can be overwhelming. Whether you’re gutting your entire home or chipping away at smaller DIY projects, there’s always research to do, decisions to make, budgets to track and jobs to delegate. Thankfully there’s some great home renovation apps available to help make each stage of the process easier. Read on to start building your digital toolbelt.

It’s often said, “a home takes time”. If you’re renovating one room now and another next year, it helps to have a clear vision for your entire home to make sure your design choices are consistent. Pinterest remains one of the best free apps for finding inspiration that suits the character of your home, and for keeping your overall vision on track.

Now we know Pinterest has countless design styles and viral trends that can lead you astray, so you’ll need to pin purposefully and exercise a little restraint if you want to avoid an odd mix of ultra-contemporary and farmhouse-chic. Once you’ve curated mood boards for each room based on a common theme, colour palette or design style, they can help guide you in the right direction when you’re deciding on fixtures and finishes, especially when those decisions come months or even years apart.

“Measure twice, cut once” is the chippy’s mantra so it’s fair to say no other tool works harder during a renovation project than the trusty tape measure. Whether you’re knocking down walls, designing kitchen cabinets or sizing up a new sofa, you’ll find yourself constantly revisiting your room’s measurements (which, let’s be honest, you’ve likely scribbled on a scrap of paper and stuffed in the bottom of your backpack).

Photo Measures is a much better way to have those important numbers handy on your device. Just upload a photo of the space and add your measurements plus any comments to remind you of details that need further explaining. When you’re talking with designers and tradies they’ll appreciate the visual aid. Download the lite version or buy it fully featured on Google Play or the App Store.

Sometimes you need a helicopter view because your project involves major structural changes. You might want to remove or rearrange walls to open pokey rooms or get more functionality out of oversized ones. Before engaging the professionals (or reaching for the sledgehammer), it can be helpful to draw up the different layouts and let those ideas percolate.

Home By Me is just one of the many online room planners available that’s frequently recommended by renovators. Without needing expert drafting skills, you can draw your plans in 2D, decorate them in 3D and share your high-definition renders with your reno team or the app’s community for feedback. Drawing plans is generally easier on a bigger desktop or tablet  screen, however the mobile app comes in handy if you need to work on your project on the go.

Homeslice has some great features for handling your renovation calendar and admin. You can use its project boards to organise your schedule of work, make to-do lists and assign tasks to collaborators.

 It’ll also make tracking your renovation budget a breeze. Budgets can blow out easily, even with a healthy buffer. All those little online purchases and quick hardware store trips add up, and at the end of the project it can be hard to get an accurate breakdown of where the money went. But by uploading photos of all your receipts, invoices and contracts, you can be sure every dollar is accounted for. The app even transcribes them for you.

Bonus tip: you can use Homeslice to keep a photo inventory of all your stuff, which you’ll love yourself for when you’re reviewing your contents insurance each year or making a claim.

Paint colour inspiration is everywhere. You can take your exterior colour cues from nearby buildings or natural scenery, and for inside, you might pull a colour from an artwork or rug you’ve fallen for, or from anything that means something to you, be it a travel photo, family heirloom or your favourite dessert.

Dreaming is the fun part. The hard part is trying to match the specific shade of your nan’s burnt butter frosting to one of the hundreds of not-quite-whites in the Bunnings paint aisle. But with a paint colour app such as Taubman’s Coloursmith, you can skip the paint aisle and create your own custom hue in a few taps. Just upload your image and extract a colour, adjust the shade until you’re happy with it, then order your sample pots directly from the app.

Time to add the finishing touches? Read more about how to decorate your home.

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