What A Good Source Photo Looks Like
Stand in a corner and shoot the opposite corner. That single habit fixes most bad results. A corner shot gives two wall planes, a floor plane and usually a window, which is everything needed to understand the geometry of the room and the direction the light comes from.
Shoot in daylight with the room lights on and the blinds open. Avoid flash, which flattens the shadows that describe depth. Hold the camera at chest height and keep it level. Tilting up makes the walls converge and stretches the ceiling, and a stretched ceiling produces furniture at the wrong scale.
You do not need to tidy the room first. Clutter can be removed as part of the design. What you should not do is hide a defect you intend to keep, because the design only works with what the camera can see and a covered up water stain becomes a surprise later.
- Shoot from a corner, camera level, at chest height
- Daylight plus interior lights, no flash
- One room per photo, not a hallway view through three doorways
- Include the floor. Flooring is usually the largest single surface in the frame
Refresh, Makeover, Renovation Or Reimagine
Intensity is the single most important control on this page and the one most people skip. It decides whether you are looking at a weekend of painting or a permit.
Refresh keeps everything structural and everything expensive. Paint, textiles, lighting and furniture change. Makeover adds flooring and fixtures. Renovation puts cabinetry, tile and plumbing fixtures in play, which is where kitchens and bathrooms get real. Reimagine is the only setting that treats the layout itself as negotiable, and it is the only one that should ever be shown to a structural engineer.
Because the intensity is a control rather than a guess, the same room can be explored four ways in a few minutes. That is usually more useful than one beautiful answer, especially when you are deciding how far to take a single room.
Why Comparing Versions Beats One Render
Design tools traditionally give you one polished image and no way to compare directions. Seeing a refresh, a makeover and a full remodel of the same room side by side is what actually makes the decision easy.
Every version is anchored to the same geometry, so the differences you see between them are real design differences and not a different room. Flooring, cabinetry, fixtures and furniture change while the walls, windows and ceiling stay put.
Budget and contractor scope are coming soon. They will turn on only in markets where we have licensed verified local cost data, because a made up number is worse than no number when you are about to spend money.
What This Tool Will Not Do
It will not produce construction documents. It will not size a beam, specify an electrical circuit, or tell you whether a wall is load bearing. It will not replace a licensed designer on a project with real complexity, and on a whole house renovation you should expect to hire one.
It also will not invent a room. If the photo is dark, blurry, shot through a doorway or covers three spaces at once, the geometry is ambiguous and the output will show it. Reshoot rather than argue with the result.
Being clear about the edges is the point. A tool that claims to do everything is a tool you cannot trust with anything.