The Best Apps for Finding Interior Design Inspiration

Houzz Rules 

One of the most popular apps for interior design is Houzz. Users take a 'novel' approach by creating Ideabooks, which is a place where you can store your favorite ideas and project inspiration. You can save just about everything you see on Houzz within your idea books, including your favorite home design photos, stories, profiles of home service professionals, products, discussions, notes, and other details related to your home project. 

Narrow things down even further by searching your personal style preferences like "Modern Furniture" or "Farmhouse Kitchen," or create personal projects like "Home Office Redo" or "Dream Home Theater" to save additional project-specific details and products.  

Pique your Pinterest

For those who like to mix and match, and take a more collage-style approach to interior design, Pinterest offers a vast variety of user and brand-generated content to choose from. 

Pinterest is a great aspirational resource for interior design inspiration. Whether through the website or free mobile app, you can 'Pin' images you like to the Boards that you create. Boards allow people to organize all of their Pins (pictures)—from the web or other Boards—around different ideas and interests. You can even follow Boards created by other users for a more curated experience. While you're there, be sure to follow BDI!     

Just search for what you're looking for, click "Save" on the images you like, and select the Board you want to save it to for future reference.    

#Picture_Perfect

Instagram is a phenomenal place to seek out particular pieces or styles that match your design needs, from the best standing desk for your office space to the ideal entertainment center or media console that can accommodate all of your home theater needs. 

By searching and following relevant hashtags to your interests and home decor style, you can find everything from making the best use of a small space in a studio apartment to how-to videos on safely mounting a TV to the wall. You can also follow other interior-focused user accounts to receive a daily feed of home decor ideas and inspiration. 

When you see a room, product, or space that you like, hit the heart symbol to like it, or tap the bookmark icon to save it to your collections for future reference.    

Be sure to follow BDI for some insta-inspiration.

Havenly features

If you prefer more professional “hands-on” attention, you may want to give Havenly a try. 

This app and website is the Match.com for interior design and finding the right designer for your project. Havenly lets you upload a pic of whatever room you want to remodel or decorate and then matches you with a professional designer based on your style and aesthetic. Then you and the designer can enter into a live chat about how best to realize your dream look. 

Chatting with a designer is free, but you can also hire a designer. However, you are welcome to carry out the design plan on your own after your free chat session. The Havenly app is available on iOS. 

Hutch and go

Another creative way to go about home decorating is the Hutch app. Here you can upload a photo of the room you want to work on or select from the available custom templates. The app generally responds quickly—usually not more than one hour—with a 3-D image of a blank room. You can then fill that room with various pieces of furniture, accessories, and artwork to see what works best. 

Hang tight

Homestyler is another good app to try things on for size, shape, and style. Start your design with a blank floor plan, then simply click on the wide range of furniture and other items from the catalog, selecting by brand, style or type of room. You can insert everything from chairs to lighting fixtures to rugs with a click of a mouse, and then you can arrange things exactly as you want.