Best Apps for Remodeling

Well you know I love techno gadgets, so naturally starting a remodel means find new apps.

I tried a bunch of them. Here are the ones that I'm keeping.

IKEA Kitchen Planner: free. This is awesome for entering the dimensions of the room and then moving cabinets etc. around to see what would fit where. Then we could visualize it as a Birdseye or 3-D WalkThrough. 

I struggled with couple of things for a bit.  Here they are so that you can avoid the hassle.

• When saving, if you use your mouse at all it won't let you change the name and save multiple drafts. 
• Also to see it in high-resolution, you have to hit shift-control-alt-H. There's no documentation for that, I just learned it from the IKEA salesman. The high-resoltion only works on Windows computers.

ToDo Cloud: not free. This works on my phone, my desktop as an app, and on the web.  It is a list multi-user app that allows us to keep track of all of the things we have to do.  All the subtasks. All the deadlines.  We can allocate certain subtasks to either one of us. And we can include on any task contact information for outside vendors, price comparisons, whatever.   We can comment on our own, and each other's tasks.  We can assign priority.  We can schedule delivery dates. It is the brain of the project.

Also, we can tag a subtask to a certain location (actually they call it "setting a context"). If it is something we need to look at at Lowe's we can tag it accordingly. And then when we are at Lowe's, we can have it show us a list of all the stuff we need to look at.   Note bene: take a screenshot of your Lowe's list in case you get in there and lose service. 

This screenshot shows all the tasks that have a high priority setting or that have a subtask with that setting.  These are all things that need to be taken care of first.

 This screenshot shows all the details of the Windows task.  You can see how each is assigned.  I starred "Shop for Bargains" to indicate that that is in the works.  I am waiting on bids.

HomeZada: free.  This is my desktop budgeting app.  It auto-populated a long list of things a typical kitchen remodel needs. I deleted some items and added some others, and then I entered educated guesses for what things would cost. It tallied up my totals for me so I could see if what I had in the savings account was close to what I was going to need.  As actual figures come in of course those totals are adjusted.

HomeZada has a mobile app, but it's not nearly as robust. Even though it does offer a comparison-shopping feature, I won't use it. I far prefer the To Do Cloud memo function for that.  Here is the link, in case you want to try it.

Houzz: free. This is a great tearsheet app. When my mom was remodeling we tore sheets of paper out of magazines and kept the scraps of paper in a big pile. Houzz is the iPhone generation's version of that. See something pretty you like? And it to your Houzz collection. It's rather like Pinterest only more dedicated to home improvement and decor.

And of course, there is an iphone Houzz app.

My Measures & Dimensions PRO: not free. Remodeling means measuring everything and keeping track of the dimensions everything.   With My Measure Pro, you take picture and then you can overlay the measurements onto the picture.

I'm using it to keep track of appliances I need to find homes for.  I'm hoping to house these two in a coffee garage.  This shows me the height, width, and depth in a way that make sense to me.  

 It's also really handy when I am getting window bids.

What remodeling apps do you favor?