Hi Cathy,
Ikea (
www.ikea.com) has a free downloadable kitchen designer that let’s you design in 2D and then view in 3D. It’s pretty easy to use.
Mill’s Pride (
www.millspride.com) has an online designer that let you pick different design styles, walls, flooring, etc. You have to register to use it, but it’s free.
Other cabinet manufacturers may offer similar things. The only problem with tools provided by manufacturers is that you are limited to seeing only cabinet styles/colors that they sell. Not much customization allowed. You might also try the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) web site. They might have something. Download.com may also have something if you do a search.
I’ve also tried two pieces of software with limited success. Home Plan Pro (
www.download.com) has a free 30-day trial and is around $40 to buy. A more sophisticated program is FloorPlan 3D (
www.imsisoft.com) , I think it also has a free trial. Both of these are more like CAD programs and are much harder to use. IMO, FloorPlan 3D, was just downright frustrating. It appears to have a lot of design capabilities, but requires a lot of time to learn how to use them.
I’ve been in the midst of planning a new kitchen and bathroom (and few other rooms) for the past two years. For designing the floor plan, cabinet layout, etc, I’ve found large graph paper and some cheap drafting tools to be the most effective design method for me. It allowed me to work faster and in a bigger scale.
I also picked up the book “Better Homes and Gardens Kitchen Idea Book” at Home Depot. It’s loaded with different design styles and also has a kitchen layout kit. The kit includes a grid and pre-drawn/pre-sized symbols that you can photocopy and cut out to play around with different layouts.
Hope this helps, and good luck with your planning!! Now, if it ever stops raining here in Vermont, maybe I’ll get to start building my kitchen instead of planning it.
