1 stars (Helpful only in designing boxes with roofs) - This product was a horrible waste of my money. There is no option for log houses, which I find surprising. This is afterall, far from an alternative building style. It seems as though this product was made for those with little or no creaativity, seeking to create another ugly box like all those that already exist all over the nation. Don't waste your money! 3 stars (Lots of work, little reward) - I was very anxious to recieve this product. I reviewed various products and this seemed to be the one to buy for the price. At this point I'm not disappointed I bought it, just disappointed at some of the limitations. I was looking to do basic, accurate floor plans, i.e. kitchens. With this product you're forced to design a house and then focus on a specific room. I live in an area where there are alot of raised houses. A raised foundation/house on piers is not an option. I will say that it has a nice selection of finishes, though many of them look too similar to tell a difference. Overall, it's a decent product and not a bad buy. 3 stars (Limited Capability-Not for remodeling) - When I read the other reviews on this product, I was a bit surprised at their very positive nature. Then I remembered how I felt when I first tried this program and it all made sense. My guess is that the folks who wrote the positive reviews probably haven't worked with the program for very long or tried to create anything but the most elementary structures. I know I was very impressed at first. That is until I tried to re-create my own home as the starting point for a remodeling project. This program is very intuitive and easy to learn, the problem is that it is also very limited. After you get past the ease of creating floor plans, the next obvious progression is to see the building in 3D. That's where the problems begin. The roof planes are nearly impossible to control. If you are creating anything other than a simple cape ... Chief Architect :: Improvement (1-2-3) :: Interior Design :: House Floor Plans (Planning) :: Layout :: Home Design :: Hobby Hobbies :: Computer software (programs) :: :: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer
4 stars (Landscape&DeckDesign Software) - Review the tutorials - that's important. Annotate the book because it doesn't include some key commands used in the tutorial Be careful to check dimensions of drawings; it's NOT as sophisticated as CAD and there are distinct limitations. However, there are some handy pre-packaged tools. 1 stars (Over The Top) - This software has been a disappointment. I have intermediate computer skills and yet I find this software to be an unreasonable hassle for doing landscaping projects. What appealed to me was the ability to add landscaping project details to a photograph to help visualize a design scheme. I have worked on this software program far too long with basically no results. The CD tutorial is not that helpful. I bought this product for business purposes. I have real estate that I wish to improve the curbside appearance. This product did not meet my simple expectations. 3 stars (Too Complicated) - I find the program hard to understand and the tutorial moves too fast. I have had the program for almost six months and still cannot use it. ... Chief Architect :: better :: homes :: and :: gardens :: landscaping :: and :: deck :: designer :: chief :: architect :: business :: finance :: business :: finance :: betterhomesandgardenslandscapinganddeckdesign :: Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer
5 stars (Using Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer) - I am a novice to landscape design. I have in the past used a drafting table, drafting machine, and created a plan view that was almost professional looking thanks to a course I took by mail several years ago. My problem was that I did not have the drawing skills to create an elevation view, and I felt that was a vital missing skill. I had looked at several brands of software (CAD) that would give me the ability to create what my gardens should look like if I were standing looking at them. Some that were too simplified were not able to allow me to get the exact picture I wanted. Others that were even more expensive than this one were not as sophisticated in their look. I did not have the money or the inclination to spend thousands of dollars on programs that were probably meant for professionals. I am a master gardener and I get my satisfaction from designing for schools, retirement centers, and others who are looking for perennial gardens, bird, and butterfly gardens. I am a retired educator and only want to use the program to help me give back to my community. The way I can do this is to help them design a garden. I found this program relatively easy to understand as I first read it. The quick start guide and tutorial is excellent and touches on all that I need to get started. It also has a variety of plant material in the zone that I live in. This is something that I also looked for in the design software. I can also import photos of plants that are not listed in the Better Homes and Garden encyclopedia. This program also lets one know how many plants of a certain kind are needed in a certain area, and how they will look in 0 to 10 years. Although I donate my own time, it is important for an institution to know how much they are going to spend on plant material, mulch, pathway material, etc. This is done in the project cost estimating portion of the p... Chief Architect :: Improvement (1-2-3) :: Interior Design :: House Floor Plans (Planning) :: Layout :: Home Design :: Landscape (Landscaping) :: Gardening (Gardens) :: Computer softwa :: Better Homes and Gardens Landscaping and Deck Designer Bundle
1 stars (Does not meet expectations) - I was buying this tool to plan and finish my basement. My handicap might be that I am used to CAD systems and had certain expectations. Here is my summary: 1. You can quickly draft an outline and modify the dimensions of the wall by dragging. But even simpler tools allow me to modify the dimensions just by clicking and changing the dimensioning values... cumbersome and not very intuitive 2. The outer wall exists as well as the insulation. Entering a frame with just one side of drywall? No Chance... unless you spend a factor x8 in price and buy the pro version --> Material list becomes pretty useless 3. Plumbing / enter preinstalled plumbing? No chance ... unless you buy the pro version 4. Walls not as high as the room to cover horizontal / vertical plumbing? No chance ... unless... 5. I put the window in the outer wall and added the drywall. In order to see the window I needed to add another window at the same place. Material list becomes useless and so on.... Summary: You must have pretty low expectations when you buy this tool. Or you want to spend $ 450 for the pro version. IMHO the videos are good for complete new construction projects but not for a finishing. The SW is not very intuitve. The only good thing is the pretty good visualization and the 3D rendering. I for my part finished the drawings in another low cost system and will sell this SW very likely again. 1 stars (How can something with such a nice package be so bad?) - If they would put as much effort into a user-friendly software as they did in the fancy-looking package, maybe this would be a product worth buying. I have tried to use this product several times and the truth is it is just not good. What really disappoints me is the reviews I saw from "experts" saying this is one of the best products on the market. Who paid these people off? What I wanted was something that I can take to a home designer or architect as how I would like my house built. So understa... Chief Architect :: better :: homes :: and :: gardens :: home :: designer :: suite :: 6 :: chief :: architect :: home :: education :: hobbies :: betterhomesandgardenshomedesignersuite6 02 october :: 200 :: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Suite 6
4 stars (Good for Basic Planning) - I am not an architect, but I enjoy designing houses for fun. For my purposes, this software is good enough (better than I expected, actually) and I have spent happy hours laying out floor plans for various designs. It is true that it is not entirely customizable, by which I mean (as another reviewer pointed out) you cannot customize wall heights easily, have a limited range of roof options, etc., and this can be frustrating. You can still do quite a bit with the specifications dialogues for each object and by fiddling around, and I have been able to do most of what I want, if not perfectly. There are more expensive products out there that give you more flexibilty. However, I am not planning to build from these designs myself, and am not so interested in getting all the specific details into the designs that I develop--probably because I know what I have in mind and can make a note with the text tool on the plan to remind me. What I am interested in is laying out floor plans and seeing how they work. This I can do with this software. You can draw the floorplan by using the house wizard, which has preprogrammed rooms (that can be resized by clicking and dragging) that you select and simply place, like jigsaw puzzle pieces, into your design. Or you can draw walls with your mouse and build your design that way, as if you were drawing it on paper (which is what I prefer). Once you have drawn your floor plan, you can see it in various views. The dollhouse view lets me see a 3D image of any floor of the whole house with the "roof off", as it were, which I really like. There are also glass house and floor camera views. The way it works is you select one of these, click on the floor plan, and draw a line of perspective. The program then converts this view into 3D to give you a view from the inside of that perpective. The glass house view, though not a walk-through per se, gives a pretty good sense of what rooms look lik... Chief Architect :: better :: homes :: and :: gardens :: home :: designer :: deluxe :: chief :: architect :: home :: education :: hobbies :: betterhomesandgardenshomedesignerdeluxe 10 june :: 2005 :: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Deluxe
5 stars (Cyberthink Your Woodframe Construction) - What's comforting about this program, once you master it, is that its output (detailed plans for architectural entities such as rooms or houses or porches) conforms to real world physics to such a degree that it would almost be impossible to create a plan for something that you couldn't actually build. In other words, the program 'thinks' in the way an experienced carpenter or contractor would think. Thus, as you learn how to use the program, if you reflect on it, you're also learning authentic and viable construction techniques. The program offers many ways to visualize your plans in 3-D. The most fascinating and possibly the most useful is called 'glass house view' wherein what you have constructed within the program can be seen as if it were made of transparent material but still in proper perspective. The on-screen image of 'glass house view' lets you 'see through' walls and floors and roofs, once again, the way an experienced contractor would. 5 stars (Nothing even comes close to the value this software offers) - I was pleasantly surprised with how easy this was to get a product with fast. The icons and drop-down menus are intuitively laid out; I was drawing and 3-D viewing away right out of the box! I don't like to read software manuals any more than most people but this one has a very well written, thought-out manual, included video tutorials on CDROM and the program itself is thoroughly wired with Help when you need it. You can get better software than this but it will cost you at least four times as much. Perfect for the remodeling contractor or home designer. 5 stars (3D View Feature Helped Us Avoid Some Serious Design Mistakes) - 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 sub... Chief Architect :: better :: homes :: and :: gardens :: home :: designer :: pro :: 6 :: chief :: architect :: business :: finance :: business :: finance :: betterhomesandgardenshomedesignerpro6 06 december :: 20 :: Better Homes and Gardens Home Designer Pro 6
