Gift for Handyman

[Robert_N]

I have a friend who is just establishing himself as a handyman with a long term goal of becoming a contractor. He has worked for a contractor doing mostly bathroom demo but may want to add landscaping and garage remodeling (adding cabinets and making the attic area of garages usable and other DIY things like adding lighting and plugs) and other things. I would like to start him off on HD, but am unsure of what ppm would be best for him. I am not even sure what questions to ask and of course since it is a gift the Pro is a bit steep for a gift needless to say. He also has some wood patio repair and modification work upcoming. I am thinking it might be helpful to the ability to cost out these small jobs to bid them and not lose $ on over purchasing materials like wood and paint and nails/connectors. Advice would be great!!! Thank you in advance for your help!

[ChiefArchitect]

Hello Robert,

 

Thank you for the question and for your interest in Home Designer for your friend.

 

In general, if the primary goal of the software is to help him(your friend) and his clients visualize design ideas from a conceptual point of view then a lower product such as Home Designer Architectural may be a fit.  For example, perhaps a client wants to remodel a kitchen and they want to take out a wall to open the space and reconfigure the layout of cabinets to take advantage of the more open floor plan.  A product like Home Designer Architectural will do a good job of conveying this concept to the client with 3D views of the reconfigured room and new cabinet layout.

 

If you are looking for something that will give you the ability to be more detailed and accurate with the 3D concepts or if you need to get into the structural aspects of framing and creating layout pages for acquiring a building permit then you would want to consider Home Designer Pro.  This product has manual controls over things like framing and roofs and has a special feature for creating construction drawings on large format paper (up to 18" x 24").

 

One thing to consider is that if you would like to start at a lower price point, you can get a lower product like Home Designer Architectural and your friend can upgrade to Home Designer Pro in the future.  When upgrading, you get a discount for the value of the product you have off the price of the product you are upgrading to.  For example, Home Designer Architectural MSRP is $199.  If you upgrade to Pro in the future, you get a $200 discount off the price of Pro.  The plans done in Architectural will open in the Pro version and the learning will apply as well because all of our Home Designer and Chief Architect products are based on the same program code.

 

Feel free to reach out to our sales department directly if you have any questions or if you would like to further discuss feature differences between our products.  We can be reached.by phone at 208.292.3400 or email sales@chiefarchitect.com

 

Kind regards,

 

Derek Pedersen

Chief Architect Software