If you're planning a new interior design project but you need to check your plans before you start remodeling, Sweet Home 3D is an excellent, versatile tool that will help you get started. You input room sizes, door locations and decorations to create 3D and 2D models of your home.

The program has hundreds of pieces of furniture, installations and decorations to help you plan your designs intelligently. You can easily see how much room a certain piece of furniture will take up in your home before buying, how new blinds will affect incoming sunlight, choose lighting installations and much more.

Sweet Home 3D looks complicated at first. It's easy to use once you understand the basic functions of the program, and you shouldn't have any trouble moving objects or making notes. When you're finished with a design, you can save it, print it or export it for use with another program. Whether you're working with an interior designer or renovating your home yourself, this is a very helpful tool with a light learning curve.

Sweet Home 3D is a completely free program distributed under the GNU public license. It is available in a number of languages, and you can choose between web-based and downloadable versions of the software. Whatever version you use, Sweet Home 3D works well and doesn't consume too many system resources. It's an incredibly powerful tool in a light package, and if you're planning any type of remodeling, you should consider running your designs through Sweet Home 3D before you start.