Kitchen design software - recommendations please?

[Adrian Brentnall]

Hi Folks

It seems that 2023 is to be the Year of the Kitchen Redesign (or so I have just been told! <grin>)

Plan is to add a few extra units, swap out the worktop and probably have the doors refinished.

So - any suggestions for a piece of cheap-to-free kitchen design software to make the 'how would this worktop look with those doors?' process a little less painful?

I had a quick play with one of the online offerings (kitchenplanner.net) but it seemed rather 'laggy' when it came to positioning things, and I think that it might become irritating quite quickly.

I know that some of the kitchen suppliers have free offerings based around their own product ranges - but I guess that could be a bit limiting.

Perfect something that doesn't have a huge learning-curve, but is still able to do a half-decent 3-d render of the finished kitchen.

Suggestions please? Thanks, Adrian

[The Natural Philosopher]

I believe google sketchup is used a lot. I have very expensive CAD software so I cant recommend what I used.

[Theo]

Do you want something that knows what a 'kitchen' is, or a generic 3D CAD package? The 'kitchen'-ness means it has a library of brand X or Y units and you slot them together, whereas in a CAD package you have to draw them yourself?

I can see the 'how does this worktop look with those doors' to be quite a tricky question unless you have a library - you could import an oak texture for the doors and a marble texture for the top, but it's not really going to closely match anything in the real world, especially if the doors have a particular detailing on them. If the question is 'do brown doors with a white top look ok?' then maybe it's good enough for that.

I think most of the point of the planners is in terms of dimensioning everything, and that can be done with any tool from a piece of paper upwards. But getting the aesthetics right is a lot harder.

As suggested SketchUp is probably a decent place to start for a vaguely friendly 3D CAD package - a passable go at generic aesthetics and it'll do dimensions (although there's a bit of a learning curve). Sketchup Make 2017 was the last free version without a cloud login, and can downloaded from here:

Any design files offered by a kitchen company are likely to be for a professional BIM system which you can't afford. So you're probably left relying on libraries of parts designed by other people, which may cover international players like Ikea but probably not UK specific ones. Or you have to draw them yourself. SketchUp has probably the best library system for what there is: It is possible some of the '3d home design' packages do this better than generic CAD, but I imagine they won't have too many libraries for UK suppliers.

Theo

[Adrian Brentnall]

Yes - I'd heard of sketchup. Searching for 'best kitchen design software' on google only takes you to pages where companies flogging kitchen design software offer lists of 'the best software' - and, surprise, surprise - their own software is No1....

[Adrian Brentnall]

Yes - the first one...

I was playing with this online designer

and it's sort of capable - once you get over the very slow response...

The dimensioning is pretty-much set already - plan it to leave most of the units where they are, add two more 600m base-units, get new worktop and backsplash and get the doors professionally painted to replace the wood-effect with (probably) a flat colour.

It'd just be handy to be able to do some 'visualisations' on colour schemes

Thanks

Thanks - I'll bear that in mind.

..and even fewer for Irish suppliers (we're in rural West Cork).

In the end, it may come down to "what's available", rather than "what we'd really really like" - choices are often a bit limited out here...

Thanks

[Andy Burns]

only the "web" version is free nowadays, but you can get a 30 day trial of the pro edition.

At one time you could register with B&Q to use their kitchen designer online, maybe you have to go in-store to get it setup by one of their "consultants" but then you can tinker with the design yourself ... restricted to their units of course, but they're all quite generic sizes ...

[Chris B]

I used

for this purpose. It was a bit American oriented and I had never used anything like this before so there was bit of a learning curve for me, but I found it very useful. There are several third party libraries for it.

I think its certainly worth a bit of your time for a look

[Adrian Brentnall]

Thanks!

In the end - the online offering from

sort-of-reasonable - enough to get an idea of what we want to do....

The job's developing (as these things do) into a bit of a complete kitchen refit (retaining the body of the units and the appliances - but probably replacing worktop, splashback and refinishing the existing doors) - so we may well find a local refurb fellow and let him to all the hard work..

Hey ho!

[Adrian Brentnall]

Ah - that looks interesting - thanks.. The one at

was ok-ish - but frustratingly 'laggy' when moving stuff around - possibly because it was an online setup, rather than running on my own pc...

I'll have a play - thanks!

[Theo]

For looks alone, perhaps you could use whatever tool you have / are comfortable with, whatever design of doors/etc it has, and later get some largish samples of the real thing (a whole door, an offcut of worktop) to compare against.

Basically all you're drawing in CAD is a wall, a countertop and the doors. All the bits about handles and detailing and stuff you don't need. Drop on whatever colours/textures you like for a first filter. Then, when you've got a shortlist get the real samples and try in your existing kitchen (which it sounds like won't actually change very much).

The aim being not to make a photo perfect rendering of the finished article (you'll never get that without a ton of work) but only something good enough to test out ideas.

Theo

[charles]

I designed our kitchen in 1988 - long before CAD turned up. Done with graph paper. Oh, and we are still happy with the layout although alll the appliances are on their second incarnation. ( waste disposal unit is #3)

[Tricky Dicky]

Fusion 360 is available for free if you go for personal use only. Although a sophisticated CAD software which takes a bit of getting used to and probably overkill just for a kitchen design it is useful for other designing. Being a 3D modeller it has an extensive range of materials and finishes when it come to rendering. Use this link do not download the free trial.

The personal version has a few restrictions mainly for group working but unless you are about to design the next Euro Fighter you will not really notice the difference to the full paid version.

As already said it is quite sophisticated and takes some learning but there are a lot of You Tube videos on it, one that takes it in easy stages and is by an englishman rather than the proverbial yank is the Woodgrafter

[Adrian Brentnall]

Thanks - that's good advice

[Adrian Brentnall]

Thanks!

[Theo]

Ah, that was one I played with before. It was ok. It can do fancy raytracing renders, which look pretty enough.

I just had a play with that (Firefox on an ultraportable laptop with i5-1130G7 running Ubuntu) - it seemed fairly smooth. If it's laggy, maybe try another browser, and check your graphics card. Or try another machine?

Seems good enough for 'do you prefer walnut or oak' and 'what about green doors' kind of questions.

Theo

[Tim Streater]

But does it tell you what goes on behind the green door?