Since we’ve been working on projects as Hammer & Handsaw, we do a lot of the home renovation planning and DIY work ourselves, including the design process. Once we have agreed on starting a project, we have to get our ideas out of our heads somehow. So then we take an incredible amount of time researching, visiting stores, buying samples, and some trial and error looking for what we’ve imagined in our mind, trying to make it tangible.
Recently though, I (Dejene) decided to see if there was an easier way to generate design ideas, but didn’t want a complicated design software or pay a crazy amount of money for it. It only took a Google search to find a couple of options and after scrolling a bit, I decided to give Remodel AI a try.
And after I enjoyed the app for a while, I wanted to share my honest review of the Remodel AI app for our recent home renovation project. We’ll also tell you the key features, how to enter good prompts to get the best interior design inspiration and examples of room design ideas we’ve created.
Disclosure: This post is in partnership with Remodel AI. As always, concept and all content are our own. Post may contain affiliate links. For full disclosure, click here.
What is AI and What is the Remodel AI App?
We all know AI is a huge buzzword these days, but just in case you didn’t know, artificial intelligence, or AI, is “the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think and learn like humans”. In other words, AI learns from a lot of our information and then uses what it knows to help us solve problems, answer questions, or do some kind of task.
Remodel AI is an AI phone app that helps you create personalized design plans for any room in your house. You do this by entering specific prompts about your desired design, like colors, materials, and styles and in just a few seconds, you’ll get a handful of brand new, realistic images of your space in your specified style.
You are initially given 8 free credits for generating AI images after creating an account. After you’ve used those credits, you can sign up for a free trial under a $10/month or $6/weekly subscription which comes with unlimited AI generations as a Remodel AI Pro feature.
How Remodel AI Made Our Home Renovation Planning Easier
I downloaded the app to help planning our office makeover. We wanted to paint the office ceiling green… which is not only unconventional but hard to imagine when you staring at yellow walls. This is why we’re calling it a game-changer:
We Saved Time: We were able to generate multiple design options in just minutes with this app. Typically we take our time to pull many design ideas from many different places and drop them into a shared digital folder (and eventually a physical folder). Then together we discuss what we like about each of the inspiration photos and how to incorporate those elements in our space. Instead of sketching the ideas together like we’d normally do, we got instant visualizations.
We Decide Quicker: Joshua and I usually have similar design ideas but when it comes to making final decisions about colors, materials, layouts and other details between two people, it can be overwhelming to say the least. Once we saw an inspiration photo we liked, we could easily plan our way into next steps much quicker than we’d normally do. It already takes us a while to complete our projects so any help we can get is welcomed!
We’re More Creative: Since we’ve been doing this for a while, it’s easy to get stuck in a creative rut and for this room we knew we want to paint the ceiling, but wasn’t sure what other possibilities there might be. When we typed in our prompt, Remodel AI came up with our original design ideas but also incorporated some different elements like furniture styles and decor that wasn’t on our radar.
Remodel AI Step-by-Step
Step 1: Download and Set Up Remodel AI
First things first, you’ll need to download the Remodel AI app from your app store (Google Play or Apple App Store) on your phone. Once installed, create an account to start a new project.
Step 2: Select Your Renovation Goal
In the next screen, you’ll see several customization options. You should select the one that best fits what you’d like to accomplish. If you’re just starting and looking for interior design ideas, we’d recommend choosing the “Interior Remodel” option under the “Interior” tab. This option allows you to make changes to the entire room.
If you have a more targeted request, like you just want to change the color of your bedroom wall, then you could select the “Paint Explorer” option instead to play with paint color schemes.
We have been using the “Interior Remodel” option most often lately since we’ve mostly been doing interior renovations and usually need an entire home design from start to finish.
Step 3: Upload Inspiration Photo
Next, you’ll be prompted to select the inspiration photo. You can do this by uploading photos that you’ve already taken, using the camera option to take new photo, or using one of the sample photos as a tester.
Our advice: If you take a picture of a messy room (i.e. toys all around or random papers on a table), this AI model will either delete them from the final result or transform it into something random. So in our experience, we usually move stuff around so that only static objects are in the uploaded photo like tables, chairs, cabinets, etc.
Step 4: Define Your Design Goals with Specific Prompts
In the next screen, you are able to select the style in which you’d like to remodel the room (“Preset style”), like traditional, modern, coastal, bohemian, etc.
If you are using this for the first time or just want to generate some ideas, you should choose this option. If you know exactly what you want to see, then select the “Custom Style” option. Depending on where we are in the planning process, we prefer to use this “Custom Style” option instead of letting the Remodel AI choose generalized interior design elements and styles for us.
Now if you’ve used any AI tool, you know this is the fun part—prompts! The more specific you are, the better the results. For example, if you’re remodeling your kitchen, you might enter a prompt like:
“A beautiful modern kitchen with white countertops, blue cabinets, light wood floors, gold cabinet knobs, and a white subway tile backsplash.”
Or for a cozy living room:
“A warm, inviting living room with a grey sectional sofa, a reclaimed wood coffee table, soft beige walls, and industrial-style lighting.”
Or for our office makeover, we used this prompt:
“Traditional classic home office with white walls, grayish-green ceiling, one large dark wooden desk, one brown leather chair, one large gray clock on the wall, two tall light wood bookcases, light wood floors, beige curtains, gold curtain rod, light wood wall art pieces”
The key is to be very specific about colors, materials, styles, the number of items, and even small details like fixtures. But remember that this is still machine learning so if you say something too niche that AI may not know, then you won’t get the correct rendering.
Step 5: Let the AI Generate Designs
Once you’ve selected your interior design style or entered your prompts, Remodel AI will generate several design options for you. It may take a few minutes so don’t expect it to be immediate.
Once it’s complete, you’ll receive 3 photorealistic renders or AI photos. We recommend saving all of them once you have them generated until there is an option to save them in the app. Otherwise you could lose the photos and you’d have to generate them again.
Here is the photo we uploaded for our office, the photo from Remodel AI and the final office makeover!
Is Remodel AI Worth It?
Overall, we’d say that Remodel AI is a great and powerful tool to have handy if you are a homeowner looking to give your home a makeover or you regularly renovate houses as a contractor or property flipper. Specifically, this is what stands out:
It’s Fast: I know I’ve mentioned this before, but the time saved is such a huge benefit in the home renovation process that it cannot be overstated and Remodel AI delivers beautifully on this front. The app generates design options almost instantly after you type in your prompt or select a design theme. This quick turnaround allows you to see what’s possible and make decisions quickly.
It’s User-Friendly: We appreciate jumping straight into designs without a learning curve. The app is intuitive and easy to navigate, so don’t feel intimidated if you’re not tech-savvy. Entering details about your room and design preferences is straightforward, and making adjustments to the generated designs is no problem.
It’s Realistic: One of the most striking features of Remodel AI is the quality of the images it generates. You get hyper-realistic photos so you can easily visualize the finished space. I mean the level of detail in textures, lighting, and materials blew me away when I first saw it. It kind of feels like you’re looking at a photograph of your future room rather than a computer-generated image. But don’t be surprised if you see a random object or item in the photo, after all, it is still AI. You can make a correction/adjustment to generate a new photo if something appears incorrect.
Summary: We were pleasantly surprised with the Remodel AI app! If you are looking for an AI interior design app that you can easily jump into, this is one to try out. Home renovations can be overwhelming and stressful so take it from us, you will appreciate any tool that will make things that much easier. Hopefully by using these steps and our tips on writing good prompts, you’ll be able to create a stunning, personalized design for your home in no time!
Have you tried Remodel AI? Show us your renderings by tagging us @hammerandhandsaw on Instagram, Pinterest & TikTok!
