When it comes to furnishing your home, the possibilities are endless. From home goods and furniture stores to décor boutiques and catalogs, homeowners can spend a significant amount of time perusing different models and styles to find the kitchenware, sofa, coffee table or accent pieces that not only reflect their taste, but also fit their budget. And that’s just the beginning.
Thankfully, the home furnishing and decorating process has just become much simpler with iHomeRegistry, a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate Web application that allows homeowners to create a personal registry of their desired home goods, visualize each room in their home with a 3-D walk through and explore the work of professional interior designers for inspiration.
Its mission is to help homeowners “create the perfect space”—something that Patrick Daniels, founder of iHomeRegistry, struggled with when he and his wife were furnishing their newly purchased home in Bluffton, South Carolina. In fact, the concept for iHomeRegistry was born after they grew frustrated with having to keep track of the various products they liked from each home goods store they visited.
“We wanted to window shop different furnishing stores to explore our options and figure out what would work best in our home,” Daniels explains.
“Recording the different models, prices and dimensions on our phones became tedious pretty quickly, and that’s when I realized there was an opportunity to streamline the home furnishing process.”
Indeed, with iHomeRegistry, current and future homeowners have all the tools they need to bring their vision to life, starting with a personal registry.
“Homeowners can create a personal registry of products they like from some of the major home goods stores, such as Pier 1 Imports, Crate and Barrel, and Bed Bath & Beyond, and organize them by room,” says Daniels. “This allows them not only to create a visual list of items they want or need for each room in their home, but also to keep track of their budget by comparing prices.”
Recognizing that part of the challenge of furnishing a home is not being able to see the end result before making decisions, iHomeRegistry also provides homeowners with a user-friendly platform for converting their floor plan into a 3-D rendering.
“Imagine being able to visualize the look and feel of each room and see what certain furniture and décor will look like before actually making decisions,” Daniels says. “Essentially, this feature of iHomeRegistry allows homeowners to experiment with different mock-ups and walk from room to room through a virtual 3-D experience.”
Of course, not everyone has a “designer’s eye,” and even for those who do, a little inspiration can go a long way in spurring creativity. So, to get the creative juices flowing, iHomeRegistry also showcases the work of professional interior designers throughout the country.
“The goal is to provide homeowners with popular and practical design ideas, styles and trends for different spaces in their home,” explains Daniels. “Sometimes looking at examples can inspire ideas of your own or lead you to modify and tweak certain aspects that complement your taste.”
But homeowners don’t have to do it alone; if they see a design they like, they can contact that particular interior designer directly through iHomeRegistry for a professional consultation.
Daniels also says you don’t have to be a new homeowner to use the Web application. “iHomeRegistry is equally beneficial for current homeowners looking to refurnish a space, for future homebuyers who want to plan ahead and archive items they know they’ll want.”
Perhaps most importantly, however, iHomeRegistry takes an exciting task—furnishing your own space—and allows you to enjoy it without the headaches and hassle of catalog clipping and long trips to home decorating stores.
“Furnishing your home can be a really exciting task, but it can also be very challenging when trying to bring your vision to life while staying within a budget,” explains Daniels. “With the ability to archive, organize and compare a variety of home goods and designs, homeowners can find what they’re looking for, for every space they need, for a price that fits their budget.”
So, you can still expect to spend a lot of time furnishing your home with iHomeRegistry, but that’s probably because you’ll have so much fun creating your perfect space.
Katharine Rose is a content writer. View her work at allthingsgood.co, a blog dedicated to thoughtful, meaningful and deliberate living.