How to Design Your Own Kitchen For Free!
Are you dreaming of a kitchen remodel? Ready to start planning your kitchen design? If you’re like me, there is no other room more exciting than the kitchen and with hundreds of design options available for kitchen flooring, types of countertops, backsplash patterns, kitchen appliances, and lighting, designing a kitchen can get overwhelming fast.
Read our article on designing your dream kitchen and make sure you are prepared for that dream kitchen renovation!
How to design your own kitchen and stay on track
It is really important to have a clear vision as it is easy to get off track and “go down the rabbit hole” when you begin your research and start looking at product. The danger when sourcing your materials is that you may begin to believe you want something different than what you truly wanted in the end. This can lead to regret that you didn’t go with your first choice.
Questions to ask before planning your new kitchen design
Before you do anything, write down what your dream kitchen looks like or follow this line of questioning:
- When you see your dream kitchen in your head what do you see?
- What is the first thing on your wish list?
- What is negotiable and non-negotiable?
- How do you want to feel in your kitchen? ( The mood, light and airy, cozy and warm, clean and fresh, sexy and stylish, eclectic and retro)
- What is the dominant color or tone of your kitchen?
- What appliances do you need? What appliances would you like?
- How much storage do you need?
- How much use does your kitchen get?
- Will you use your kitchen for entertaining or dining?
- Is there something you need in the new kitchen that is not currently in your space now?
Free Online Kitchen Design Tool Review
Now that you have a clear vision for your kitchen on paper, lets get into creating a kitchen floor plan! We live in an era where there is no shortage of access to kitchen design tools and/or kitchen design software. There are several apps and programs to choose from today, here are a few of them:
Kitchen Planner
This is a free online simple kitchen design software by Kitchen Planner allows you to play with positioning of appliances and storage while giving you an option to see a wide variety of flooring materials and colors, cabinetry faces, countertop color and even your ceiling color! Kitchen planner does not require downloads, accessible from their website instead. It works well enough to get an idea of what your space would look like and experiment with a few color choices. No downloads and no account needed.
Home Hardware Design Software
Another free online kitchen design software is hosted by Home Hardware, no downloads! This is another decent way to test your design capabilities, try new layouts and gauge your interest in certain tile, color, cabinet and flooring choices. You are relatively limited regarding cabinetry portfolios and tile flooring arrangements but it is still worth playing around with. They support accessory items that can be found at home hardware as well as part of the decor.
Planner 5D
With over 4 thousand items to choose from, you can truly create your dream kitchen using this tool. The free version is quite limited and similar to Room Sketcher, there is quite a learning curve. While they do provide kitchen cabinet templates or layouts, these items are not available in the free version. There are very few items available for free making it pretty difficult to use this software when wanting to really grasp your design thoughts.
The good news though is that upgrading to the premium version is actually quite cheap. They charge $5 for the month or $60 for the year which in my opinion is very reasonable. Using Planner 5D may be a great choice for homeowners who feel more comfortable having a complete picture before committing to design purchases. With access to that many materials and products, you should be able to get your complete design layout.
Ikea Kitchen Planner
The popularity of Ikea kitchens cannot be denied. The price is right and the design options are really endless, so obviously it is in Ikea’s best interest to make their Ikea Home Planner available to all.
Like Ikea or not, they have the best, well thought out business model on the home interiors market hands down. Their free design tool is marketing genius, highlighting most of their kitchen cabinet and storage options, include measurements, providing the cabinet front styles as well. Another unique and very useful feature of their design tool is the “open item” tab. If you click on a dishwasher for example, you can see what happens when the door opens! An essential tool for testing door clearance on a kitchen design where space is limited and the layout is questionable.
Room Sketcher
Another powerful free design software is Room Sketcher. This software is not limited to the kitchen, it is a home design software so homeowners can use this program to layout and design other rooms in the home as well. While Room Sketcher offers a free version, their software and library of items must be downloaded onto your computer.
This program also requires you to have an account for it to work properly. The free version does give you access to a decent amount of library items like appliances and furniture and allows you to create very nice looking and properly measured layouts, but you do not have the ability to view your design in 2D or 3D without upgrading to the premium versions. The image above is what you get with the free version.
This is where this design software falls to the bottom of the pack, their VIP subscription is $49 and only provides images measuring 800px where as the Pro version is $99 and provides large file images reaching 2000px
