4 Online Design Tools for Your Home Office

By
Cath McIntyre
Cath McIntyre
Cath McIntyre is a home office expert and writer with over two decades of experience offering remote workers design and technology solutions. She has designed a variety of home offices through her consulting business. Cath has also provided consulting services to businesses considering flexible work options.
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Updated on 01/30/19
Artsy home office
Aleksandra Zlatkovic / Getty Images

Not all of us have the ability or the time to meet with an interior designer to create our ideal home office. All is not lost as there are online solutions which can be very useful when looking at new ways to design our home offices. Online programs or apps such as the following; will give you a better idea of what may or may not work in your available space. I've been using these programs recently to try and determine alternative office layouts and what other spaces could work for my home office. I do like to use different online programs for designing my home office as each provides different functions and I can get a better idea of what the possibilities are.

  • 01 of 04

    Sweet Home 3D Online

    Sweet Home 3D will work on just about computer and there is an option to download the program as well. If you wish to save your creations, you can register with the site and then go back to work on what you previously created. I was quite pleased with the amount of furnishings they have under the "Office" tab in the program. I do recommend reading through the FAQ, User's Guide and watching the video tutorial before trying to create your home office design. Once you've worked through the possibilities and saved your project, you have two different ways that you can view your completed design. You can have an aerial view or a virtual tour view. It's a great way to get both perspectives on your home office design and to see if the layout really could work.

  • 02 of 04

    Design A Room

    This program courtesy of Armstrong Flooring Products provides you with the opportunity to consider different flooring and wall color options. They don't have a specific Home Office category but you can use the Family/Living Room or Bedroom options to play with the available selections in each of those categories. While we may not always be able to change the flooring in our home offices for whatever reason; this tool is useful as we can see how even changing the color of the walls can change a room and affect the feeling of the room.

  • 03 of 04

    Ikea Home Office Planner

    This program courtesy of Ikea lets you begin with an already furnished home office design or begin your design from scratch. I like having both options available as there are times when beginning with a furnished room lets me decide if the style of furniture is what I'd really like or whether I want to have something completely different. It's very easy to use and you just click on items to select them to move or delete them. The program also provides a variety of viewing options so that you can get a good look at the overall layout.

  • 04 of 04

    Floorplanner

    A basic account with Floorplanner does require you to register with an email address. There is also an option to upgrade to a Plus version. One of the options is an office which makes it nice that you don't have to try and work with a space that you have to totally modify. There is a great variety of furnishings and architectural elements available for creating your home office.