The Apps That Every DIY Remodeler Needs

Renovating your home can be an exciting experience. It can also be expensive, which is why many homeowners choose to go the DIY route. But any DIY renovation can also be intimidating, even if you’re relatively comfortable with home maintenance and repair tasks.

Whether you’re considering a DIY renovation to save money or because it’s a fun challenge, there are many online tools that can make planning and executing your project easier. The 10 apps below can help you find inspiration, identify furniture and other items that will support your vision, and even show you how to approach the entire project, step by step.

Best apps for DIY inspiration

Every home renovation begins with a need for change: you’re tired of your current look or you feel a sense of dissatisfaction with the flow or functionality of your home. But that feeling that something is wrong doesn’t mean you immediately know what you want. These apps can help inspire you:

• Houzz. One of the most popular interior design tools, and for good reason: with the Houzz app, you can see endless interior design examples that you can use for inspiration. You can search by paint color, design aesthetic, or other details to see what other people have done so you can steal their ideas and make them your own.

• LOVE KNOW.it. Instagram can be a treasure trove of design ideas, but people don’t always think to tag each piece of furniture or lamp in the photo to make shopping easier. This app takes screenshots of Insta posts or other sources and searches for the product, offering links to stores where you can buy it.

• RoomStyler. This website offers a 3D plan maker and mood board tool, but it’s best used as inspiration. You can easily browse designs created by people around the world and connect with others who are also planning renovations so you can exchange ideas and advice.

• Morpholio board (iOS) / Creator of MoodBoards (Android). If you’re the type who likes to create a mood board when tackling a visual project like a home renovation, these tools are perfect. Collect product images, color swatches, and other visuals from almost any online source with just a swipe of your finger.

Best Apps for DIY Planning

Once you have a project in mind, it’s time to make it more concrete. These apps can help you plan your project:

• CubiCasa. If you want to know if your dream piece of furniture will fit in a space, or need to calculate how much flooring or cabinets you’ll need to remodel your kitchen, CubiCasa makes it easy to create an accurate floor plan of your home. Simply scan your rooms with your phone and within a day or two you’ll have a clean floor plan with dimensions that you can use for planning.

• Pantone Connect (iOS /Android). It’s not free, but the myPANTONE app harnesses the color-matching power of the folks at Pantone to help you create pleasing, professional color combinations for your home. It can even match a color in a photo and provide you with a color palette.

• Paint my room (iOS /Android). If you want to take a slightly more DIY approach to choosing paint colors, this nifty app lets you apply a color to the walls of your room so you can see what it will look like before you commit.

• HomeByMe. This is an incredibly useful application that allows you to create 2D floor plans that you can easily convert to 3D floor plans. Then you can fill these floor plans with real, real products to see how it will all look.

• HomeZada. HomeZada is a platform that makes it easy to manage every aspect of running your home, from maintenance schedules to budgets. But it can be used more precisely to manage a renovation or remodeling project, tracking materials, costs and deadlines in one convenient place. If the scope of a renovation intimidates you (or if you’re the type of person who forgets how much tile to order the moment you’re in the store), this app can help you manage it all.

The best step-by-step app for DIY projects

Finally, it’s time to get things done. But how?

• wikiHow (iOS /Android). If you’re not sure you have the skills and experience to take on your DIY project, this classic online resource can show you how to complete just about any task, with photos and videos to guide you. Using the app is much simpler and more organized than going through 1,000 YouTube videos.