Anyway below is the design i came up with using that website. It was very useful as after drawing the walls/structure/windows, they had a good variety of furniture to add in to visualize the whole setup. This allowed us to come up with dimensions for various pieces of furniture like the sofa, TV console, dining table, bed, wardrobe..etc. One of the biggest headache was to settle what kind of sofa we wanted - whether it was L-shaped, short or long and what color. Ultimately we decided to just stick to a certain length of the sofa and the key criteria was it has to be comfortable.
So, we didn't leave it to the contractor to decide for us on certain things as since this was our home and are going to live in it for at least 5 years, we decided to be more involved in the design of it. Also, i have to credit another nameless ex-colleague who opened his house for me to visit and shared with me how he designed his home. The takeaway from him was:
"Everything is by design, nothing is by chance"
The green camera at the bottom right is where you would like to start off when you toggle the 3D view. So imagine last time i could walk through this virtual home i built and i even used it sometimes to show my contractor how i wanted certain things like the height of the mirror in the dining room and the glass partitions and what not. Well it was cool while it lasted and i wouldn't have done it easier with the other online design tools available then. So if you want to start with designing your own home, i advise using a tool so you can visualize your work otherwise it's hard to communicate with your spouse/contractor on what you want. As far as possible i tried to make things visual to minimize misunderstandings.
In the next post, i will talk about the plan for each of the rooms and mention a few unconventional (but lawful) things i requested my contractor to do for my home.
