Mindscape 3D Home Architect Home Decor & Design

3D Home Architect Home Decor and Design bears a striking resembelence to the two Home Architect products we have reviewed. The software has thousands of household items to choose from, manufacturer brands, animations and movie creation tools, a handy project estimator that keeps your eye on costs, as well as many customisable furnishings and fabrics to choose from. The user interface is the same as the other packages from 3D Home Architect and it's just as fiddly as ever, but if have the time and you are willing to learn then the experience can be fairly rewarding.

A good feature across all three packages is the multiple cameras, which can be used to explore your development from a variety of different angles.

We recommend you get this product over Landscape and Patio Design or Kitchen and Bath Design as, when you buy this product it comes with the other two for free. For the same price of $49.95 you get all three products!

The house builder wizard isn't too bad either. You specify your basic needs such as one or two floors, a garage, what style you want the house built - contemporary or country etc. Once built, you can modify the features, add extensions, put in rooms, furniture, a bathroom, kitchen - the works.

However, it isn't without its flaws. While it is relatively easy to place furniture and add walls, fine tuning it will take a while. For example, when we placed the phone on the coffee table it appeared to hover a few feet in the air. A puzzling glitch wouldn't let us put a TV on the TV stand. Also, you need to be careful when placing walls near doors as accidentally deleting a door is painfully common. We tried putting in a spiral staircase from the basement and of course, it wasn't high enough to reach the wall. There was no obvious way to extend the staircase to fit.

The same positives and negatives we mentioned in Landscape & patio and Kitchen & Bath Design exist in this package. We recommend you read all three reviews and then decide which to buy based on your needs.