There are several different approaches you can take to having your new kitchen designed and built. Any one of the following approaches ( or even a combination of these options ) can be the path to a successful build  depending upon your budget, your personal preferences and the individual project in question.

Working with an Professional Interior Designer

The first option to consider is to spend some time gathering together your ideas and design concepts and then to engage a professional Interior Designer that will work with you to help to further develop those ideas and assist you through the entire kitchen design and remodeling process including the creation of construction drawings and establishing specifications.

The advantage of this approach is that you will be guided by a design professsional throughout the kitchen remodeling process. An independent professional Interior Designer will be well placed to monitor the process of the construction to ensure that the building contractor is performing properly and that you are getting exactly what you are paying for.

The disadvantage is that this approach can be quite expensive particularly for smaller projects.

Working with a Kitchen Design Center

Option 2 is to work with the kitchen designers that you will find embedded  within a kitchen specialty store or home design center.

You can often get so called  “free design services” if you are buying the kitchen cabinets, counters and appliances from these retailers. Generally this means that they will prepare simple drawings for you which you can then use to either hire a professional builder or to DIY.

The advantage of this approach is that it can certainly be less expensive than hiring an Interior Designer. The disadvantages are that you must constrain your choices to the items that they sell at that particular Design Center.

Working with a “Kitchen Builder”

Option 3 is to work directly with a “Kitchen Builder”. This type of builder will have drawings prepared for you and will then build from those drawings.

The advantage of this approach is that you can have the builder give you pricing as you work with them to design your kitchen. Also, you deal with one person from beginning to end. The disadvantages are that you cannot rely on a design builder to be creative. You will have to provide that part since usually (but not always) builders are not great designers.

Another disadvantage is that you will not get competitive pricing if you follow this route.

Drawing the Design Yourself

The final options is to do the design yourself and actually draw it using the techniques and the Kitchen Design Software we will be discussing in later posts then you can either have a professional check your drawings or give them to one of the design professionals described in options 1 or 2 above.

Always make sure you get competitive bids from at least 3 builders that you can also conduct credible references checks on. When comparing the different bids you must be careful that they are all pricing the same thing.

It is an often used ploy by unscrupulous bidders to try to substitute inferior products in their bid to be more competitive.

The obvious advantage of bidding is that you will probably get the best price. The disadvantage is that the drawings and specifications must be very detailed and fully descriptive of the work in order to get an accurate quote, the better the drawings are, the better the results will be in any of these 4 options.

Acting as the General Contractor

A word of warning; If you are not going to give the job to a “General Contractor” who coordinates the entire project and instead you want to hire out pieces of the work to various sub-contractors (such as flooring, cabinets, plumber, electrician etc…) your job will be significantly more difficult. This is because you will now have to coordinate everything and have to schedule when each trade can be on the job. It will make your life much easier if you hire a General Contractor.

Choosing the approach that is right for you

In summary, if you want to save money and feel that you have the ability to draw, option 4 is a good choice. If you really want someone else to take care of the design and drawings, go with option 1 or 2. If you know a good, talented “design builder” who you can trust and is open to your design ideas choose option 3.

An introduction to this series of articles on Kitchen Design.

The purpose of this series of articles is to assist you in the design and implementation of  the “process” of building or remodeling your kitchen.

It contains kitchen design ideas and links to resources on the Internet to guide you through the process from initial concept through to visualizing your ideas and finally to having your kitchen built.

This is however not intended as a definitive series on on how to actually build a kitchen yourself. There are many “do-it-yourself” books available at book stores and home improvement centers.

This series of articles focuses on Design. Future posts will discuss tips for those of you who who are going to the tackling the actual drawing of your design using our free Kitchen Design Software.

Of course if you prefer, you can skip this part and simply have a professional draw up your Kitchen Construction Documents.

Again this is a guide which is designed to help, inspire, and inform. It cannot be a substitute for creativity. Hopefully it will introduce you to the tools, resources, and ideas that you need to fully realize your new kitchen above all we hope you have fun designing your new Kitchen!

Article 1 – Basic approaches to Kitchen Design.

If you are having trouble with color selection then our 3D room visualisation software can be a really amazing tool. Here is some complimentary information about interior decorating color wheels, how to use them and some basic advice on the “theory” of color selection.

One of the questions that home owners tend to agonies over when it comes to home design is color selection. You can choose the most wonderful textures and exotic materials accented with wonderful lighting but if you don’t get the basics of color right then there is the potential for the entire project to miss its potential or worse.

Now color selection always has and always will be a subjective discussion and therefore very personal to your tastes however as any design professional will tell you there are a number of “color rules” that once understood can empower anyone to create brilliant color schemes that just work.

The Interior Decorating Color Wheel

The three primary colors are red, yellow and blue.

The three primary colors are three pure “hues” that can be combined together in limitless combinations to in turn create limitless new colors. Any color you see will always have been originated by combining different combinations of red, yellow and blue.

Secondary colors result from combining equal amounts of two pure hues together to make a new color, for example orange is created by combining equal amounts of red and yellow together.

The secondary hues are orange, green, and violet

Tertiary colors are formed when you combine a equal amounts of a primary hue with a secondary hue, for example if you combine red and orange together in equal amounts you product red-orange.

Tertiary colors are Red-Orange, Yellow-Orange, Yellow-Green, Blue-Green, Blue-Violet, and Red-Violet.

You can understand from this how the Interior Decorating Color Wheel is derived.

Warm Colors

Colors formed in the red – orange spectrum of the color wheel ranging from red – violet through to yellow – green are considered “warm colors”

Cool Colors

Colors formed in the blue spectrum of the color wheel ranging from violet through to pure green are considered “cool colors”

Other Color Terms that might come across in Home Design

An Interior Decorating Color Wheel has many different color combinations it will also include all many different color “tones”

By color tone we refer to how light or dark any particular color is.

A “tint” is any color with base white color added.

A “shade” is any color that has had black added.

Learning to work with all these colors along with tints and shades in this manner allows interior design professionals and DIY’s to choose a color scheme they can be confident will work perfectly every time.

Interior Design Color Wheels and color schemes that work

or “Complementary, Monochromatic & Harmonized Color Schemes”

Monochromatic Color Schemes.

One of the commonly use color scheme method is called is the monochromatic method, basically this means that you create an entire scheme around a single color and variations of the color shades and tints ( ie one color with black and white added )

The monochromatic color scheme is definitely the easiest of all color scheme methods to execute effectively, the beauty of the monochromatic method is found in its simplicity, the key to preventing monochromatic schemes from becoming boring is to use texture and color in your accessories as well.

Harmonious Color Schemes.

Perhaps the next easiest color scheme method is the Harmonious Scheme

In its simplest form all “harmonious” means is to use similar colors in your scheme. Its best to use a color wheel for this and to select colors which are next to each other of the spectrum.

An example of a harmonious color scheme would be a color scheme developed around oranges and yellow colors, professional designer generally caution the use of of colors that occur of either side of a primary color.

Harmonious color schemes work best when you select similar color “tones”  – remember by tone we mean how light or dark any particular color is.

Complementary Color Schemes

Complementary color schemes tend to be the most  visually dramatic type of interior design color scheme however they also tend to be the challenging to “pull offf”

In complementary color schemes colors are selected directly opposite each other on the color wheel spectrum.

When considering a complementary color scheme you will need to be aware that you don’t use colors in the same intensities, one way to overcome this is to explore a scheme that is “mostly” one color with a few “accents” from the complementary color.

Choosing your Kitchen Paint Colors

Some simple tips to assist you with choosing paint colors for your new Kitchen

Where to start with Kitchen Paint Colors ( Remodeling )

The best place to begin is to decide which features and existing material finishes in your existing kitchen you will be leaving untouched. These elements might include the kitchen cabinets or the floor tiles for example, clearly you will need to select a color scheme that will work with these pre-existing elements.

For example if your kitchen cabinets have a red tone you will need to make sure the remainder of paint color scheme will work with that hue.

Creating Visual Focus – Drawing the Eye

We use contrasting paint colors to place emphasis on particular elements of the Kitchens architectural features where we wish to draw focus.

For example you can apply a contrasting paint color ie either lighter or darker than the wall – to elements such as crown molding or window surrounds. You could also accent one wall in a room by painting it a different color than the prevailing color or by giving it a faux finish, adding wallpaper

You can join rooms adjacent to the kitchen together by using a common color palette alternatively you can create separate spaces by altering the shade and hue within the common palette.

Color has the power to either draw focus to and emphasize certain features or to minimize others. You could make the ceiling in your Kitchen appear higher by applying a lighter color, or lower with a darker color and a long narrow kitchen will look wider if you use a slightly darker color on the shorter walls and a lighter color on the longer walls.

How Light affects Color Selection

Remember that the color you choose for your kitchen may look different at various times of the day and night. The warm tones of incandescent lights will have a different influence on the color than the natural light of day.

Color Schemes for Small Kitchens

You can help to make a smaller kitchen seem larger by painting the walls in colors that make them appear to recede, such as blue, green or violet. Don’t use dark timbers and colors in a small Kitchen as those colors will only server to make the space appear smaller – avoid dark reds, purples, dark blues and greens.

If your working with a small kitchen select crisp colors or whites with a tint of blue, green or yellow for a subtle background of color.

Color Schemes for Open Plan Kitchens

If you have an open plan area that your kitchen reside within don’t choose colors that provide a huge contrast in color to the remainder of house unless you want your kitchen to visually dominate.

Color selection for open plan living areas is generally best when you select a color that gradually flows within the single open plan space.

Assuming white or netural colored walls in the large open plan space you should consider textured neutrals, whites, grays, black and silver metallics

Kitchen Paint Color Summary

Make the most of color in your Kitchen, enjoy using it our Kitchen Design Software can be a big help in mapping out the overview of your Kitchen Color Scheme but you do need to remember that the colors that you see represented on your computer monitor are going to vary significantly from the end result. Even in the real world colors change and will look different at different times of the day and with different light sources, so expecting a computer to simulate that complexity is being naïve.

If you have concerns and don’t want to take “risks” then stay with to neutrals and layer gradually adding color until you arrive at the look you want.

Kitchen Design Basics

The key to great kitchen design is getting the fundamentals right first and then layering in the finishing elements, color, materials, equipment selection etc. If you plan your kitchen in a logical and methodical manner then the project should be successful.

You should begin your Kitchen Design by establishing the basic parameters and framework with which you have to work such as physical space, the “intent” of the kitchen and your working budget.

1. Establish the physical space the kitchen will occupy.

If your working on a remodeling an existing space this will begin with measuring, sketching out  the physical area you have available making note of the presence and position of the existing services, windows and doors etc

2. Establishing the Kitchen Floorplan to ensure that the work areas,  appliances and storage areas in the best possible locations.

3. Establish the types and position of household services that you will require for execution of the design, eg water, drains, power, lighting, gas, vents

4. Confirming the finishes that you require for the bench tops, the exterior of the cabinetry and the interior of the cabinetry, the flooring, the walls, ceiling and window treatments

The Kitchen Design Triangle

With all but the Single Wall Kitchen Design Professional Kitchen Designers use a deceptively simple approach of creating a triangular work space designed to “connect” the three principal work stations in a Kitchen.

Food Preparation Area

Cook and Servery Area

Washing and Hygiene Area

Stating the obvious each work area will needs to include the space and appliances ( including storage ) that are required for that activity.

This concept creates an imaginary  “work triangle”  that interconnects the three stations. Care should be given that the distance between the three stations is “manageable” a kitchen that has a very large work triangle is incredibly inefficient.

If you look at the diagrams below that where created using our Home Design Software you will see the imaginary triangle that is created between the three work zones.

Single Wall Kitchen Layout

Simple and relatively inexpensive the single wall kitchen layout is simplicity at its best. The single wall kitchen design is good for long and narrow kitchens and it often uses in apartment and condo kitchen designs where space is at a big premium.

Pros: While it does not utilize the classic kitchen triangle, its linear design still allows for unimpeded traffic flow

Cons: Counter space in the Single Wall Kitchen Layout will always be at a premium.

Although incredibly popular I do not believe that the one-wall kitchen design is the best design it can be dramatically improved with either the corridor or L-shape kitchen design providing of course that the square footage is available.

L-shaped Kitchen Layout

U-shaped Kitchen Layout

Kitchen Island Layout

Galley Kitchen Layout

Kitchen Design Fundamentals will be continued here.

Download free Room Decor Games

Dreaming of becoming an Interior Decorator ? Do you love to play with Room Decorating Games ?

Amazed by how many people (  both young and not so young ) approach us at Home and Building trade shows asking if what we are demonstrating is a Room Design Game we decided to develop some extra functionality and add some additional items to our 3D software to cater to this market.

So if your interested in Room Decor Games this might be just what your looking for.

There are a lot of sites on the Internet that host all manner of different types of room decorating games. These sites are hugely popular and very professional as the concept of room design as entertainment in itself seems to be gaining popularity almost daily.

However most of the sites that we have visited are providing brightly colored flash based games that I think everyone would agree are aimed squarely at pre teen girls.

These types of games are a lot of fun but we wanted to create something that was closer to a real software virtual environment where aspiring decorators could try their hand at virtual 3D room design.

This is what we created. Its based on our hugely popular 3D Room Design Software, it has the same basic intent however with a more games like interface ( you can now plug in a computer joystick to navigate around your room in 3D walk mode  )

and the library of room templates we provide are a little more “fantasy based”

We now include, in addition to the generic super room tenplates based on Art Galleries and Virtual Museums and we will be adding to both the room templates library and the objects library on a constant basis.

Put your Interior Decorating Skills to the test in 100′s of room Templates

In addition to individual rooms our games library includes full scale house designs so that once you have mastered the basics of the game you can move onto the next levels – apartments, condos, houses and even mutistorey properties.

This architecturally designed house is only one of an ever increasing quality  of unfinished “game ready” house models that you can download and ” decorate” using our propitiatory Architecture gaming engine.

Our decorating games engine is Windows based and as with any 3D game you will need to have a gaming style 3D graphics card and drivers installed on your computer to get the best performance from our Architecture Game.

As your finishing your master piece designs you can save the room designs  as many times as you like so you can create literally dozens of different versions and variations or themes. You can even email the finished file to a friend and they can open and explore your designs in their own copy of the software.

This software is the Intellectual Property of the owners of this site. It is not freeware or shareware or open source it is fully commercial and licensed private development gifted to our customers for a limited time under restriction of one license per user and any redistribution, mirroring or hosting of the software or this serial number without the express written permission of the owners of this site is prohibited by copyright law.

You can find a series of instructions on how to use the 3D Software below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to Download a free Trial version of the 3D Software

You will not require a serial number for this trial.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us using the form below.

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Kitchen Design Software can help you to visualize and plan the perfect Kitchen for your specific lifestyle and needs.

For many people the Kitchen is the very heart of their home. It is also one of the few areas of the home that must be designed with several interacting and interrelated elements like food preparation, storage, cooking appliances etc working together so in makes sense then that we should we pay special attention to this busy area when it comes to design and planning.

For several decades professional kitchen designers all over the World  have been using CAD and 3D style software programs that empower them to create engaging and immersive kitchen designs for their customers either as 2D still images or more recently as fully interactive “virtual kitchens”.

The amazing power of 3D to allow customers to get in and experience a proposed design well before its been physically constructed is now well understood and in use by almost every professional kitchen design team.

If there is a last  remaining challenge to this concept of virtual design it is that if your anything like me you would find yourself wanting to explore all the variations of color and materials combination possible and that could take hours ! I think these things are fun almost game like.

But lets face it if you had to pay a professional operator to drive the software for you that is probably just not going to be practical. You probably need to use the software to look at a small number of variations and move on as quickly as possible.

But what happens if the products that you want to look at are not in the software library ? In my opinion the singularly most powerful thing about our Kitchen Design Software is the fact that the library is being built on real world products and you add to the built in objects library with your digital camera.

If you see a product that you like and its not in the library you can take a simple digital photo of the item ( or download an image from suppliers website ) add them to the library and then see them all in one place, all together in combination with each other along with colour charts, materials even flooring – all you need is a digital camera and a copy of the Virtual Decorator Software.

This is an actual screen shot from the software.

This image shows a cooktop that we have added to the library using our Digital Camera.

If you’re a product manufacturer and would like to have your product range represented in The Virtual Decorator Product Library please drop me a line at sales@developer3d.com

For a very limited time we are giving away a free copy of the Virtual Decorator with very copy of our 2D Floor Plan Software upgrade.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 2D Floor Plan Software Upgrade is only $17 and you get a free copy included. You can request a free copy of our floor plan software using the request form below a download link and serial number will be email to you.

Our latest update to the Materials Library for the Virtual Decorator Software are Clock Face Textures so you can add clock to your Interior Design Scenes.

A full size example of one the new Wall Clock Face Textures added to our Library

Wall Clock Face Texture Upgrade

Click on the thumbnails below to see a full size image of the various Wall Clock Face Materials we have added to our website. To use these Wall Clock products in the Virtual Decorator Library simply right click on the image you wish to download and select ” save as” from the dialogue menu.

Save the image in the “your images saved in here” folder under the program – materials menu. You are permitted to download and use these images with the Virtual Decorator Software you may not redistribute, resell or host these images at another website.

You can download a free basic copy of our Interior Design Software here.

Image Projection on Building Facades

I recently saw a wonderful visual arts display where a group of University Architecture Students were using the clean facade of a building as a ” projection screen “, they had set up a high performance digital projector across the street from the building and where “throwing” animated 3D images onto the building’s surface that had been beautifully matched to complement the building facade.

The result was truly spectacular and many people where literally stopped in their tracks in the street by this projection display and where starring up at the stunning light show.

Looking beyond the immediate ” wow factor ” of the event I started to think about the potential to throw a full scale digital Artists Impression of proposed renovation or remodeling project onto an existing building.

As I have found so many times over the years with “inspired ideas” a few minutes online provided many examples of different teams of Architects, Artists and Advertisers exploring this digital medium around the World.

I found examples of Architecture and Building Projection both indoor and outdoor, in black & white and in stunning color, using static images and full animated motion, this is an area of Digital Media Marketing that I am certain will continue to grow and become more and more engaging with advances in the projection technology.

Here are a few of the best examples of Outdoor Building Projections that I found in my search online, I hope that you enjoy them as much as I did.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.