Stressing Over Your Next Home Renovation Project? Let AI Handle It.
A sea of apps is helping take the headache out of home design and construction. ‘There seems to be a new one every day.’
8 min
Halfway through the building process of Kyle Loucks’s new five-bedroom, 5,800-square-foot house in Vancouver, Wash., his wife decided she wanted to add a sports court.
At first he panicked. “One seemingly small decision, like ‘let’s put a hoop here,’ has a ripple effect,” says Loucks, 37, a former Meta engineer who founded a joint-rolling technology company called RollPros.
Using new AI software called Digs on his laptop, he put a box into the house plans, first in the backyard. Then, seeing that it wouldn’t fit well, he moved it to the driveway. Within minutes, his contractor, notified by Digs of the change, confirmed that the dimensions would work and messaged the concrete guys to let them know before they did the pour and to see if they had any input on holes for a pickleball net. The landscape designer weighed in, suggesting a couple of trees nearby to help it blend in, and the lighting subcontractor advised them on how a flood light would affect the high-voltage plan.
“It helped bypass the possibility of human error and miscommunication,” says Loucks, whose home is slated to cost around $2.2 million and to be finished in October.
Homeowners are experimenting with an explosion of new artificial intelligence applications to quickly visualise an array of layout and style ideas, coordinate with builders and designers and estimate costs. These new tools say they can help save time and money in the building and renovation process, which has traditionally been filled with seemingly endless decisions and an avalanche of paperwork that often result in longer projects and ballooning costs.
There are now dozens of AI apps related to home construction, design and renovation—most of which have sprung up in the past two years.
“There seems to be a new one every day,” says Patrick O’Toole , publisher of Qualified Remodeler, which did a survey in March 2023 of its 83,000 readers and found that about half have tried generative AI tools.
Some apps, like Renovate AI, focus on visualisation. Users can generate images to see how different design ideas might look by uploading photos or drawings of their rooms. Then they can choose styles like “rustic farmhouse” or tell the tool to adjust specific elements like paint colors, lighting, furniture or the style of the cabinets.
Other platforms, like Digs, use AI to create 3-D “dollhouse” floor plans and manage the logistics of a project, room by room. Digs can layer in the location of specs like the load-bearing beams, plumbing lines and lighting plans to show where walls can be knocked down, and users can query it to get the make and model of an appliance or the dimensions of the wall, all sourced from the original documents.
Analysts say the demand for new tools is driven in part by the state of the housing market. The decline in construction of new houses, combined with a rapid run-up in interest rates over the past two years that sent mortgage rates soaring, has resulted in many people choosing to stay and fix or add on to homes they already own. Spending on DIY projects soared 44% from 2019 to 2021, the latest stats available, according to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
The new apps offer homeowners a way of gaining control over what can be a dizzyingly complicated and opaque process, though not without their own risks.
Jess Sandlin, 38, is working with an architect and designer to renovate a 9,000-square-foot home she and her boyfriend bought in Austin, Texas, for $2.5 million. But she is also using an app called Remodel AI as well as ChatGPT to help her get a sense of the possibilities and to empower her with images she can show since her vocabulary doesn’t include technical architectural terms.
“I wanted to get a sense of my own style and be a little more knowledgeable so I didn’t just get their style,” says Sandlin, executive director of Word Playground, a nonprofit for teaching children literacy.
As she tested out different prompts to home in on her own design sensibilities, Remodel AI generated hundreds of options—including some with furniture on the ceiling and the walls. She wanted an indoor play area for her four sons, aged 5 through 13, to include multiple layers of hammocks, a zip line and netting. The app couldn’t handle it. “It had no idea what I was talking about. It could not compute,” she says.
Dirk Morris, founder and CEO Reimage AI, the maker of the Remodel AI app, which costs $10 a month or $50 a year, says Sandlin may have been using the wrong tool: Sometimes people try to use the standard interior remodel tool to make extensive structural changes, he says.
Even when Sandlin was able to generate exactly what she wanted, she ran into human roadblocks. When she showed her architect AI-generated photos of a bronze fireplace with a brass mantle, “they rolled their eyes at me,” she says. Eventually, her designer agreed to the bronze.
While traditionally AI tools were aimed at professionals, the newer apps are letting laypeople in on the game, says Michael Anschel , a principal at Minneapolis-based OA Design and Build Architecture.
However, he says the tools aren’t sharp enough yet. For example, when Anschel asked Renovate AI to generate a kitchen with hand-scraped stone counters and paisley wallpaper, he got an image with stainless steel counters and paisley wallpaper on the cabinets and the ceiling.
Other pros have expressed concern about having to address design ideas that might not be possible from clients armed with AI-generated images. “It could be extremely annoying,” says Daniel Kaven of Portland, Ore.-based William Kaven Architecture.
Laura Bindloss, 38, who owns a social media and public relations agency, has renovated several homes, but she had never used AI to help until her most recent project: a 2,000-square-foot house she bought in March for $575,000 in Bellport, N.Y. Bindloss, who plans to live in the house on weekends as well as rent it out, was looking to spend a total of around $200,000, with $55,000 on the kitchen alone. She wanted to get the project done quickly so she could start renting it out this summer.
“I’d heard about it as a visualisation tool but it didn’t seem that useful,” she says. When she hired cabinetmaker Isla Porter to design the kitchen, she found that the company was using AI provider Skipp, which can make a scan from a phone into detailed renovation plans, complete with renderings, materials lists and construction-ready documents. The first step was to take a 3-D scan of the space with her iPad. She then answered a 40-question survey, with questions like “where do most meals happen” and “what do you like most and least about your current kitchen.”
The AI used her scan and survey responses to generate hundreds of floor plan options within minutes. Isla Porter’s designers then manually edited them, significantly reducing the time it would have taken if the designers had to go through the survey results without the technology, says Sharon Dranko, Isla Porter’s founder. Bindloss then picked from the three options Isla Porter recommended, choosing materials and finishes in the program to see how everything would look. The design plans for the kitchen were finalized in two weeks, says Bindloss.
Dranko says that even though the AI’s measurements tend to be 98% accurate, it’s still crucial to have a human designer double check everything. AI is also off sometimes when it comes to understanding living patterns, meaning how the way a person uses their kitchen should impact the design, she says. Dranko says she is constantly feeding it new information like colors and fabrics to make it more useful when it comes to finding the right style and look for her clients.
The idea of using AI in his home renovations came to Kade Boverhof when he was looking at possible floor plans for the renovation of a 1,900-square-foot house he bought in Grand Rapids, Mich., for $150,000.
Boverhof, 31, wanted to create a floor plan for the house that took into account all the iterations he’d devised in previous renovation projects using a computer-aided design (CAD) software program. There must be an AI program that could do this, he thought.
After searching Google and going on Reddit to ask others what they were using, Boverhof came across an app in development called A-Space, which let him use its tools for free as an early adopter in exchange for his feedback. He downloaded his existing blueprints, which included information on the location of walls that were necessary to hold up the structure, added some instructions and hit generate. From the four options, Boverhof locked in the kitchen location he liked best and again pushed the generate button to see the options for the other rooms around that decision.
Boverhof says the results weren’t perfect. It didn’t know the local building codes for the city of Grand Rapids, such as the percentage of space required to be windows or doors. But he says he saved many hours and got back new layout ideas that he could tailor.
“It’s at a primitive stage, but the possibilities are there,” he says.
Ryan Fink, CEO and co-founder of Digs, says that of the some 6,000 homes currently on its platform, half have homeowners participating. Builders currently pay $69 per user per month, but the contractors, vendors and homeowners involved in the projects participate for free, he says.
Sid Sarasvati founded Renovate AI because of the difficulties he encountered with staging homes for sale. He says the app will continue to improve, such as offering users the option to click on products to buy online, create budgets and connect with vendors. Launched in January 2023, it has some 15,000 subscribers now, 40% of whom are on a $10-a-week plan and 60% of whom are on a $40 annual plan.
Many of the AI apps are aimed at improving the speed and communication for homeowners working with an architect or designer. But some, including A-Space, hope to democratise the process and reduce the need for architects by automating tasks like filling in planning applications.
“We want to give every person access to architectural expertise,” says Ziyad Mourad, CEO and co-founder of A-Space, which plans on offering the app free to homeowners for a single project and for $50 a month to architects for unlimited use.
WSJ Tests an AI Remodelling Tool
Rashad Fakhouri, an architect at London-based Pilbrow & Partners, who is currently using A-Space on the side but not for work projects, says he doesn’t foresee a time when AI will replace architects because of the need for the architect’s aesthetics and their ability to troubleshoot throughout the process.
“We will still be necessary,” he says.
In five years, AI tools for home remodelling and construction will become more integrated, says Jose Luis Blanco, senior partner at McKinsey who leads the firm’s engineering and construction work in North America. “We are in the early innings,” he says.
Mike Rowe, of “Dirty Jobs” TV fame and a spokesman for AI provider Digs, agrees that the continued expansion of AI will democratise the home-building process. “It will put a lot more power in the consumers’ hands,” he says.
Some homeowners say the tools are already offering a newfound leg up in managing their projects with the pros.
“AI doesn’t talk back,” says Austin homeowner Sandlin.
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This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
As Australians develop a taste for craft distilleries — and their products — the local industry is meeting the growing demand with exceptionally good drops
6 min
From the Winter issue of Kanebridge Quarterly magazine, on sale now.
It never used to be this complicated to order a drink. Less than 10 years ago, requesting a whisky, a gin and tonic or even a vodka martini was a fairly straightforward affair with a choice of international brands, from Glenfiddich single malt whisky to Absolut vodka and Bombay Sapphire gin.
Now, the drinking landscape is somewhat more complicated — and that’s good news for locals who like a dram of whisky or a cocktail or two.
The Australian distillery industry has gone through rapid growth in recent years, from 30 distilleries nationally less than 10 years ago to more than 600 now. And that’s despite the overall levels of alcohol consumption falling over time across Australia.
CEO of the Australian Distillers Association, Paul McLeay, has a simple explanation.
“Australians are drinking less, but better — and patterns are changing,” he says. “Cask wine sales are down. They’re drinking less boring beer and more interesting products.”
While the distillery industry was already growing, McLeay points to COVID as the impetus for the increasing appetite for flavourful spirits.
“Tastes changed after COVID,” he says. “That home cocktail culture took off as people realised they could make interesting drinks at home — and post photos of them on Instagram.
“That notion of drinking less but better, the idea of fewer drinks on fewer occasions made it feel more special.”
While the Australian wine industry was valued at $5.7b last year, the distillery market is making headway, coming in at $2.5b. However, McLeay says it differs from the wine market, especially in terms of production profiles. For starters, without the need for vineyards, he says the distilleries are equally split between city and regional areas. This is a key advantage for small craft distilleries looking to connect with their local market.
“If you live in Marrickville (in Sydney), you’ll be proud to be drinking a local gin,” he says. “When someone comes to visit, you want to give them something to take home. Spirits allow you to give them a taste of the locality — you can buy it in a bottle.
“For travellers, if people remember the Hellfire Bluff Gin they had on a night out in Hobart, that’s a positive association with the area as well.”
At the moment, he says there are about 500 gin and vodka distilleries around the country, about 100 whisky producers and 50 making rum. With each product having its own flavour profile influenced by local conditions, from the region’s botanicals to its barley, the quality of its rainwater and even the way it is aged, it is good news for consumers seeking variety. McLeay says most distilleries are making multiple spirits to increase commercial opportunity and get product to market quickly.
“The ‘brown’ spirits have had more time,” he says. “Whisky looks clear like gin and vodka initially but over three or four years of maturation, it turns brown. It only takes about a month to make gin, which is why a bottle of gin is generally less expensive than whisky.”
While it might seem as though the homegrown whisky, gin and vodka market has appeared out of nowhere, credit for the modern distillery industry in Australia largely falls to Bill and Lyn Lark from Tasmania who lobbied their local MP in 1990 to change antiquated federal laws that outlawed distilleries that were smaller than 2,700L.
Following the change, LARK Distillery opened in Tasmania in 1992, capitalising on the state’s reputation for growing high quality barley, its clean water, as well as providing the perfect climate for ageing single malt whisky. Support for the Larks’ efforts also followed from government, as well as mentorship from John Grant from Scottish label Glenfarclas, with their first whisky sent to market in 1998.
Bill Lark says while he knew it was a delicious drop, it wasn’t until the early 2000s that the business kicked up a gear.
“The early 2000s was a period where we and the few other distilleries had to prove their credibility to the market,” he says. “When LARK first won a major award in the World Whisky Awards in 2009 I think it gave the confidence in others to get involved. From day one, inspired by such greats as John Grant from Scotland, I encouraged as many new distillers as possible to become a family of distillers where hopefully we would all be producing a world class product in sufficient numbers for eventually Tasmania and Australia to be recognised as a significant whisky producing region.”
In March this year, LARK was recognised by the World Whiskies Awards in London for crafting Australia’s Best Single Malt and Best Blended Malt.
In the intervening years, Australian distillers far and wide have heeded the Larks’ call to create their own spirits, from small family operations focusing on a single product to larger businesses with their eyes firmly set on the world stage.
Fellow Tasmanians Suzy and Cam Brett from Spring Bay Distillery share a passion for whisky and were inspired by their travels and the Larks’ example to start their own business.
“We remember very clearly being told by Bill Lark to make sure you make bloody good whisky!” says Cam. “I think there has definitely been a change in consumer habits.
“People are more engaged with what they are drinking, how it is made, where it comes from and that has increased the popularity of all spirits.”
Suzy says she first experienced whisky while working in Edinburgh in the 1980s. She’s been a fan ever since.
“Whisky is the king of drinks because of the complexity, the ageing and the romance,” says Suzy. “The time it takes the whisky to mature is influenced by barrel size, bond store, location and climate. The larger the barrel, the longer the maturation.
“Some of our large barrels may take 10 years or more to mature and it is a case of ‘it’s ready when it’s ready’ and won’t be rushed.”
Jake and Tess Eagleton started their Wagga Wagga label, Riverina Gin, in February 2023, after years of discussions, as well as travelling around gin distilleries in the Scottish Highlands, where Jake grew up.
“There are lots of gin distilleries popping up in the Scottish Highlands — I was surprised to see so many,” Jake says. “We started visiting them and often they were on people’s farms and you’d get the chance to meet the maker.”
The couple, who now have three children, were inspired by the notion of a family-run business and, with the help of local winery, Borambola Wines, who offered them a shed, focused on a one-shot distillation method. They have a simple philosophy of making one product really well.
“We try to stand out by not standing out too much — we use fresh organic oranges from the local region so the flavour is citrus forward,” says Jake.
They have also called on connections in their local community, partnering with Paper Pear Gallery in Wagga Wagga to host the Riverina Gin Club events. Expansion will be slow but steady.
“We made sure people knew we were a family-forward business,” says Jake. “We have seen a lot of peaks and troughs with the economy and we have been adaptable because we do a lot of the work ourselves. We have one gin that has been well received.”
Brand director and co-founder of Never Never Distilling Co Sean Baxter has bigger ideas for the business he started with friends George and Tim, with plans to further its expansion into Asia and Europe. Unlike other distilleries that sell via bottle shops as well as online, Never Never is focusing on the hospitality industry to reach bars and hotels. It’s not a surprising strategy given Sean’s former life at Diageo, the peak company for brands such as Johnnie Walker, Tanqueray, Guinness and more.
“I worked as a contractor for Sweet&Chilli as a national brand ambassador for Johnny Walker,” Sean says.
“That gave me access to so many amazing venues and bars and I met a lot of people. I was standing in front of so many people telling incredible brand stories and it sunk in — I wanted to do my own.”
The Adelaide-based business now offers more than a dozen gins and sees the relationships with bartenders and hospitality providers as key to their success.
“We collaborate with international bartenders to promote the brand in Hong Kong and Singapore, and over the past 12 months we have moved into France,” he says. “That’s been a real eye opener, taking our oyster shell gin to the French — it’s an exciting push.”
The ultimate goal is to create a global brand.
“We didn’t build Never Never Distilling to be small.”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
