Room Design for Grown-Ups

My fifth-grader came home with his latest school project, a big sheet of graph paper filled with colorful shapes and a key to decode his unique room furnishings, incuding: an octagonal sofa, a wide-screen plasma TV, and a pool table. All under the title, "The Coolest Room Ever."

I remember having lots of fun drawing rooms to scale and planning what kind of furniture would go where. I kept them in a folder covered with my favorite Wacky Pack stickers. But I digress. My point here is that there are lots of room-planning tools available for adults to help decorate rooms in our real-life, grown-up houses.

Here's a look at some reviews of home-design computer software, which cost between $35 and $80. But if you want to try your hand at computer-assisted room design, check out this free tool first on HGTV.com. Pick a room, set the dimensions and pop in the furniture, windows, doors and accessories where you choose. Thanks to Lifehacker for the link.

I found another free tool on the Better Homes and Gardens Web site, but it is not as easy to use or as responsive as the HGTV one.

Have any of you worked with room-design software? Let us know if it made a difference in what can be a difficult task: visualizing a room before putting the expensive pieces together.