Let’s say you’re moving from a 1,000-square-foot apartment to one with 640 square feet. You’re worried your new living room won’t have room for your couch, the cat tree, your entertainment center, and that giant steamer trunk that serves as your coffee table. Some buildings offer 2D layouts online where you can virtually scooch tables, rugs, and chairs to envision when the finished product will look like, but it’s not quite the same thing as being there. LOFT’s new app, Rooomy, puts you one step closer with 3D floorplanners that can recreate your room with just a photo.
The technology lets homeowners snap and upload pictures of their homes, either to decorate from scratch or just try out a new paint color. It’s like a grownup, virtual version of a dollhouse. But it’s not just for people moving or redecorating. Let’s say you stop by a homewares store to pick up a wedding gift for your cousin, and notice a stunning sofa but can’t tell if it’d match your drapes better in smoke or desert. No problem. If the store is one of Loft’s partners, you can virtually see the sofa, in both shades, inside your living room. You could try out the retailer’s whole catalog in your house, if you felt like it. Havertys and Blu Dot are two of the retailers who have signed up to let you “e-decorate” with Rooomy, with more on the way.
Rooomy, which is launching in March of 2015, is meant to connect retailers and Realtors as well. “Staged properties sell better than empty ones,” Loft CEO Pieter Aarts says. The app will function as a symbiotic chain, where Realtors can use retailers’ furniture to make their for-sale homes look more attractive to buyers; meanwhile, retailers get to have their products showcased to potential homeowners, who may be in the market for new goods; the homebuyers get to picture their new digs in 3D, with either their own or retailers’ furniture; and finally, interior designers get work staging the homes.
First and foremost, though, Rooomy was designed with consumers in mind, so it’s user friendly and sharable. “Consumers will be inspired by before and after pictures from other users,” says Aarts. “They’ll be inspired to upload their own photos and to e-decorate their existing homes.”
This app plus Pinterest could send some people we know down a dark, design-envy-ridden rabbit hole.
