An interior designer works with many different interior design tools, such as software, fabric samples, and presentation boards. These tools, along with several others, allow the designer to choose the right items to use in a room and compare her ideas with those of the homeowner. While these tools are not the traditional tools used by other professions, such as a saw or a hammer, they are no less valuable in ensuring the design job is completed correctly.
One of the most advanced interior design tools in a designer's collection is interior design software. These programs come in a variety of styles, from bedroom design software to kitchen design software. Other pieces of software allow the designer to remodel the entire house. Still others deal only with the outside of the house or only with making blueprints of different homes and rooms.
The interior design software creates a virtual, often three-dimensional, model of the room or house being designed. The designer can then choose different colors and patterns for wallpaper or paint, add and remove furniture, and outline space for new windows or doors. There are many advantages to designing a model of the home before making the actual design changes. The designer can talk with the homeowner to see what he thinks of the model and the designer can pick out any flaws in the design that need to be tweaked.
Design software is just one of the many interior design tools used in the design business. An interior designer may also carry a book of her favorite paint, fabric, or wallpaper samples. These large books allow her to show the homeowner what colors and patterns she had in mind for a specific room. It also allows her to compare the swatches with current colors used in the home.
These samples combined with the interior design software allow the designer to utilize all her interior design tools and combine them to create a presentation board. This could be a real display board or a combination of a 3-D model and paint swatches. The designer makes a presentation that includes the blueprint and 3-D model of the room, the fabric and paint she plans on using, and pictures that have inspired her design of the room. These might include an accessory for the room or a piece of furniture.
Typically a professional designer will spend hundreds of dollars on her interior design tools. She will want to invest in a good software program that includes the features and advanced 3-D modeling options she needs for working with different project types. She may also wish to order fabric and paint swatches from companies she frequently works with so she can show them to her clients.