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

by Chief Architect

Product Features

• Quickly create accurately scaled floor plans in minutes that automatically generate 3D models
• Use advanced 3D camera tools: Glass House™, Doll House™, Framing, Cross-Sections, and Virtual Tours
• Includes the exclusive Design Planning Center from the editors of Better Homes and Gardens® magazines – for expert design guidelines, tips, and advice
• Create the virtual look and feel for your design before it is built with actual colors, cabinets, flooring, furniture, doors, windows, landscaping, and more
• Includes over 1,500 Free Sample Plans

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000BI7V0I
• Item model number: 045-505
• Date first available at Amazon.com: January 12, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,395 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #35 in Software > Home & Hobbies > Gardening & Landscape

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 features everything you need, including advanced Computer Aided Design (CAD) design tools and advanced 3D camera tools, to design the home of your dreams. Developed by Chief Architect, this new product includes exclusive design advice by the experts at Better Homes and Gardens magazines, and is the ideal software solution for anyone who wants to build their new home from scratch,

Advanced Computer Aided Design (CAD) design tools and advanced 3D camera tools make it possible to design -- and see from every angle -- the home of your dreams.

Design floor plans... View larger.

...And see them come to life in brilliant 3D. View larger.

You can design outdoor spaces, too. View larger.

remodel their existing home, or redesign their bathroom, kitchen, and even landscaping. And although Designer Pro 7.0 includes some of the most advanced design tools you'll find anywhere, the package includes a "Getting Started Tutorial" and over 70 "How To" videos that will help you take on even the most of advanced projects. In no time at all, you'll be well on your way to designing a project that architects and other professionals would otherwise cost you thousands of dollars in architect or other professional fees.

Advanced Design Tools and Hundreds of Templates
To get started, Home Designer Pro 7.0 features several Better Homes and Gardens home style templates that range from traditional to contemporary, complete with colors, cabinets, and moldings. An advanced "Home Designer" tool that lets you quickly place and arrange walls, windows, doors, and cabinets, as well as choose colors, place furniture, and create decks and landscaping features. Once you have the basic design elements in place, you can use the advanced 3D camera tools -- Glass House, Doll House, Framing, Cross-Sections, and Virtual Tours -- to "experience" your new home. This will allow you to create the virtual look and feel for your design before it's built with the actual (and expensive) materials.

Overall, you'll have over 8,000 design tools at your disposal, over 9,000 items from name-brand manufacturers to use, and 1,500 free sample plans. Professional CAD tools will prove indispensable when it comes to the details.

Professional Building Tools To Get The Job Done
Creating your design is only the first step of several. Once your design is complete, you'll need to begin the arduous process of creating a materials list to estimate total costs, check your plan against building standards, and so on. Home Designer Pro 7.0 will help you do all of this and more. You can automatically generate a materials list for project cost estimating, and use Home Designer Pro 7.0's tools for roof generation, framing, dimensioning, and foundations. A Plan Check will automatically validate your design against standard building principles, saving you hours of time. And most importantly, an automatic materials lists will help you keep track of your project inventory and cost estimating as your design progresses.

And when it's time to move outside, Home Designer Pro 7.0 has you covered with landscape design tools that can create hills and valleys for custom landscapes, as well as Fence, Garden, Deck, Driveway, Path, and other Terrain Feature tools. The package includes two program CDs, four tutorial CDs that include over 70 "how-to" videos, a "getting started" guide, reference manual, and a USB security lock.

Product Description

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 is professional home design software for the serious home enthusiast. Developed by Chief Architect, this new product includes exclusive design advice by the experts at Better Homes and Gardens magazines. Perfect for Home Design, Remodeling, Interior Design, Decks and Landscaping, Site Planning, Cost Estimating, CAD, and more. –It’s Powerful, Fun, and Easy!

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 3D View Feature Saved Lots of Mistakes, January 18, 2007

By 

Booker (FL United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

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.

48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So far, does all I need, August 2, 2006

By 

C. Boyle (Alexandria, va United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

Upgraded from the non-Pro version. Pro expands on a huge amount of functionality and makes many of the tasks that you could do with the earlier version much simpler. Roof's (my nemesis in the $100 version) are manageable. Dormers are easy. Centering a door on a window on the opposite wall is automated. Defining half-height wainscotting is now do-able. Haven't tried the CAD functions and I'm hoping I won't have to, because it looks like Pro doesn't have much beyond simple shapes, plus being able to read CAD designs from the $1300 version.

The video tutorials are a bit slow, but very useful. 2 hrs of them. There are also sites to go for help and to download custom item CAD files. Will post more when I have completed this house design.

My real need for this project is to show my architect that it is actually possible to turn-around design changes in hours rather than weeks. My permit office requires architect sign-off on pretty much everything. Worth many times more than $500 to my project.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than I expected, September 6, 2006

By 

EP in Florida - See all my reviews

This review is from: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 7.0 [OLD VERSION] (CD-ROM)

Home Designer Pro 7.0 has a fairly steep learning curve, but is very easy to use afterwards. The reason for the learning curve is the fact that building design is not simple - to get meaningful results, you need to know a lot of specifics. If you get frustrated with any aspect of this program, watch the tutorial for that task! There are many short tutorials rather than a few long ones, so you can target your problem area very quickly. The manual contains the same information as the tutorials. Everything is high quality, except some pops and static in the tutorial soundtrack. And not only can you get detailed building plans (layouts) from this software, you have complete control of the plans' content. I started with an architect who came highly recommended, but realized that I wanted the type of control that this software provides - I saved money, too. Check your local building codes - they may be different from the defaults.