Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 8.0 [OLD VERSION] (B0015GKRKG) - Reviews and Prices

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Editorial Review:

Designing like a professional has never been so easy! Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 8.0 is professional home design software for the serious home enthusiast. Enjoy the same tools that the professionals use for home design, remodeling, interior design, decks, landscaping and cost estimation. Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro has all the same great features as Architectural Home Designer, Interior Designer, Landscaping and Deck Designer plus advanced CAD tools, advanced building tools, the ability to create blueprints, manual framing and roofing and much more.
Integrated Design Tools Home Designer Pro makes it easy to design and visualize your ideas on your next home or remodeling project with over 8,000 powerful integrated tools. In addition, the Design Planning Center provides advice, decorating guidelines, tips and techniques from the editors of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Create accurately scaled floor plans that automatically generate 3D models in minutes. Create any detailed view of your design using advanced 3D camera tools like Glass House, Doll House, Framing, Elevation and Cross-Sections Quick Startup Options Guide will help you begin with How-To tutorials based on your type of project Use the House Wizard for quick and easy layout of your rooms Select from the pre-designed Home Design and Landscaping Style Templates complete with colors, cabinets, decks and more Exclusive Design Planning Center for up-to-date How-To and Design Tips from the experts to help in your design process Includes Step-by-Step Tutorial DVD Packed with over 70 easy step-by-step tutorial training videos Generate shadows from the sun for realistic 3D views Point-and-click to remove wall surfaces, or use 3D Cross-Section Elevation Slider to quickly create a 3D slice of your desired view Create any custom roof or ceiling plan with the Roof Design Tools

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 8.0 is professional home design software for the serious home enthusiast. Enjoy the same tools that the professionals use for home design, remodeling, interior design, decks, landscaping and cost estimation.

Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro has all the same great features as Architectural Home Designer, Interior Designer, Landscaping and Deck Designer plus advanced CAD tools, advanced building and CAD tools, the ability to create blueprints, manual framing and roofing and much more.

Designing like a professional has never been so easy!

Enjoy the same tools that the professionals use for home design, remodeling, interior design, decks, landscaping and cost estimation. View Product Demo

Manual framing tools for fully editable framing, including joists, rafters, trusses, beams, posts and more.

Design the kitchen of your dreams--move walls, create new cabinets, add appliances.

Glass House View provides a full translucent view of your design.

Professional Home Design and Landscaping Software
Create accurately scaled floor plans that automatically generate 3D models in minutes. Create any detailed view of your design using advanced 3D camera tools like Glass House, Doll House, Framing, Elevation and Cross-Sections. Create the virtual look and feel before you build!

Home Design Software by Chief Architect

• Exclusive Better Homes and Gardens Design Planning Center for expert design advice
• Choose from over 5,000 Sample Plans
• Design Inspiration Gallery contains photos by type for design and inspiration design ideas
• Choose from built-in style templates or create your own custom home design, or use the House Wizard
• Powerful building tools like automatic roof generation, dormers, stairs, framing and foundations

Integrated Design Tools
Home Designer Pro makes it easy to design and visualize your ideas on your next home or remodeling project with over 8,000 powerful integrated tools. In addition, the Design Planning Center provides advice, decorating guidelines, tips and techniques from the editors of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

Get Started Quickly and Easily

• The Quick Startup Options Guide will help you begin with "How-To" tutorials based on the type of your project
• Use the House Wizard for quick and easy layout of your rooms
• Select from the pre-designed Home Design and Landscaping Style Templates complete with colors, cabinets, decks and more
• Exclusive Design Planning Center for up-to-date How-To and Design Tips from the experts to help in your design process
• Includes Step-by-Step Tutorial DVD Packed with over 70 easy "step-by-step" tutorial training videos that will quickly get you started on your next home design project

3D Design Tools

• Design in 2D and 3D. 3D Views are automatic with a point-and-click of the camera tool.
• Glass House View provides a full translucent view of your design
• Doll House View, a 3D overview without the roof, is an effective tool for space planning of furniture placement and traffic flow
• Create a Virtual Tour--draw your record line to Automatically Generate; or record your camera movements
• Visualize your home with day and night views
• Assemble a scale model of your design with Model Maker
• Generate shadows from the sun for realistic 3D views
• Point-and-click to remove wall surfaces, or use 3D Cross-Section Elevation Slider to quickly create a 3D slice of your desired view

Automated and Manual Building Tools

• Design roofs and walls in 3D
• Generate various styles of Automatic roofs or manually design any custom roof including curved roofs
• Use the Automatic Dormer tool to quick place dormers--shed, gable, eyebrow and barrel
• Automatic Structural Dormers
• Unblock and manually edit Automatic Dormers
• Create any custom roof or ceiling plan with the Roof Design Tools. Edit and create roof planes to create a roof of any pitch and shape. Start with an automatic roof and then add custom details, or create the entire roof manually.
• Automatic framing tools
• Manual framing tools for fully editable framing, including joists, rafters, trusses, beams, posts and more
• Choose from several built-in wall styles with individual wall layers or define your own wall style
• Ability to read and edit files by Chief Architect Full Professional Software
• ICC Residential Design Checklist will allow you to check your plan against national building codes

Powerful deck and patio tools allow you to design and visualize your new deck with 3D models and can help you estimate the costs.

Create plot and perimeter plans; automatically generate a 3D model of your actual terrain.

Powerful CAD tools to detail cross-section views with insulation, cross-boxes and more.

Identify the exact placement of framing components, specify wall layers, floor structure platform height, mudsills and more.

Kitchen and Bath Design

• Design the Kitchen of your dreams--move walls, create new cabinets, add appliances--Design your perfect workspace!
• Design your new kitchen or bath using the Cabinet Designer tools
• Plan the new layout of your bathroom with custom cabinets, sinks, showers and garden tubs. It's easy to visualize your ideas in 3D.
• Create custom cabinets in minutes by choosing your own colors, countertops, door styles and more
• Use the Cabinet Designer tools to create unlimited cabinet styles. Choose your own colors, countertops and door styles.
• Design and edit custom countertop shapes and styles

Interior Design

• Use the Better Homes and Gardens Design Planning Center to help guide your designs with guidelines, tips and expert advice
• Design Inspiration Gallery--Our gallery of photos will help you to jump start your design and decorating style ideas with inspirational photos by rooms
• Material Painter lets you apply colors and materials quickly and easily
• Choose from thousands of colors and textures or create your own materials using a digital photograph
• Design for your lifestyle and personality--change colors, add lighting and choose furniture to accent your new room
• Import your own symbols from Sketchup or 3D Studio

Decks and Landscaping

• Powerful deck and patio tools allow you to design and visualize your new deck with 3D models and can help you estimate the costs
• Design single or multi-level decks complete with automatic deck framing and an advanced deck framing option for more complicated deck designs
• Quickly lay out your deck with stairs and arrange furniture
• Deck foundations automatically generate to match sloped lots
• Exclusive Better Homes and Gardens Plant Encyclopedia
• Choose from over 3,700 plants with the Plant Chooser
• Plant Hardiness Zone reference maps
• See what your plants will look like in 0-20 years
• Pathways--Use the Pathway tool to design curb-appealing landscaping using stone, pavers, or sidewalks--line with trees, shrubs, flowers and more

Site Planning & Estimating

• Use Automatic Build Terrain and Terrain Perimeter tools to create flat, irregular shaped, or sloped lots--use a GPS to import or enter elevation data
• Create plot and perimeter plans; automatically generate a 3D model of your actual terrain
• Export Material List to spreadsheet programs including Microsoft Excel
• Save snapshot Material Lists for different stages of the project
• Add detail to each individual component in the material list for a comprehensive cost estimate breakdown
• Master Materials List allows you to store and manage commonly used material prices
• Sprinkler Designer tools to easily layout sprinkler zones
• Fences and Driveways--With the Fencing tools you can choose a variety of fencing styles and custom gates. You will also find driveway, sidewalk and curbing tools
• Hill and Valley tools make it easy to add gardens, beds and slopes that automatically appear in 3D views. Choose from landscaping style templates or create your own.
• Define Terrain Elevation lines, Elevation Regions and Terrain Breaks

CAD Tools

• Powerful CAD tools to detail cross-section views with insulation, cross-boxes and more
• Advanced CAD editing tools such as replicate, line weights, point-to-point move, custom patterns and more (Compatible with AutoCAD patterns)
• CAD-to-Walls allows you to convert CAD lines from DXF file format to walls
• Layers can be used to separate key building components such as electrical or framing. Display or hide features of your design, set colors, lock layers and use reference layers for precise editing.
• Create Back-Clipped Cross Section/Elevation Views to limit your view to relevant details for precise plan editing

Building Tools

• Customize construction methods for walls, floors, ceilings and foundations. Identify the exact placement of framing components, specify wall layers, floor structure platform height, mudsills and more.
• Advanced stair tools allow control of shape, starter treads, flaring, tread width and more
• Create pony walls and edit wall shape or create a stepped foundation in cross-section view
• Multiple-select editing. For example, select all your cabinets and change them all with one command.
• Use callouts to reference between details, plans and cross-sections in a blueprint layout
• Create blueprint layouts (up to Architectural C drawings 18" x 24") with 3D, CAD, Cross-Section/Elevation and Plan Views
• Rotate and Flip Plan
• Advanced dimensioning tools include angular, end-to-end and interior dimensions
• Fully editable dimension lines and configurable dimension editing allow you to change where dimensions locate walls, windows, doors and other objects

Customer Reviews:

Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0

Quick Look at designer 8:

Designer Pro 8 has corrected several bugs with the 3d rendering and does not crash when the image is revolved. Additional add on items are appreciated.
Adapting to the new menu bar layout is easy and after a couple of time becomes fairly intutive.
For ease of use, I highly recommend this product

Great program but lacks a few details:

Previously I had employed an architect to draw a garage addition to my house. Unfortunately I wasn't satisfied with the final result, and really wanted to save a little money so I decided to draw it myself. The program takes a little getting used to but it has a great tutorial DVD with it to help you get through the details. The one major thing that I haven't figured out or that the program doesn't have is the elevations that are required by our local code. In particular local officials want elevations from... more info

Unfriendly program:

Most folks know this has a steep learning curve. What you might not know is the company produces new versions at an amazing rate, changing very little, and then drops all support for previous versions. Plunk down $500 and get dropped like a hot potato after a few months unless you shell out more for the latest version.
If that's not bad enough, all the little quirks in this program will provide endless frustration if you try to produce a set of plans for actual construction. Most professionals do not... more info

Great product:

I have never used a home design program prior to BHG-HDP8. It took about three week to actually get a feel for using this product. My goal was to find software that would help me design a second story floor addition on part of my house and add a family room with a garage below it. One of the hardest things to get right is the roof design, but after a few weeks of trial and error I managed to get the roof lines (which included several gable roofs at different highs and a second story with dormers)correct.... more info

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