Top Six FREE Apps for the Amateur Re-Decorator

So, you have a new place. Congratulations! That’s great! I mean, it’s not perfect. The walls are pretty bare, and you’re sleeping in a sleeping bag, and I think that cockroach might be part bulldog – but, you know, lots of potential here. What you really need is to get your butt into Martha Stewart mode and redecorate with these six great apps.

Then you need to call the exterminator, because, seriously, that cockroach growled at me.

ColorSchemer
Platform: iOS

Let’s face it, colors are hard. What shade of periwinkle goes well with that shade of plum maroon? Do you know? Of course you don’t. What are you, some kind of fashionista? You don’t even know what ‘fashionista’ means. Luckily, ColorSchemer is here to help your aesthetically-disabled self scrape by. ColorSchemer automatically recommends complementary color palettes, can generate matches for a particular shade, and, if you see a photograph with a composition that strikes your fancy, you can automatically extract a color palette from it. You can also browse other users choices to get ideas, too. 

eBay Mobile

Platform: iOS, Android, and Windows Phone

Ebay is the world’s garage sale, and it can be invaluable for decorating, especially if you’re creative. Cracked china? Flowerpots! Old, worn comic books? Grist for a large wall collage. Broken minifridge? Bookshelf! Using Ebay, you can pick up miscellaneous trash for a song that, with a little bit of work can be turned into cool, aesthetically pleasing décor for your new pad. But you know how Ebay works: the app just makes it a little more convenient. 

Photo Measure Lite

Platform : iOS

Photo Measure Lite is a simple, useful little app that allows you to take pictures of a room, and easily map dimensions onto the photos for later reference. This can be invaluable, not so much in what it gives you, but in what it helps you avoid – namely, getting your shiny new surround sound eight burner fifty inch plasma piece of furniture delivered and finding out that it simply won’t fit through the door. Or the window.

Snapguide

Platform: iOS

Let’s say you’ve just got this adorable new chair. It just needs to be reupholstered… and one of the feet needs to be replaced… and you’re pretty sure there’s something living it… and you’re not sure how to fix any of that. No problem! Snapguide provides an easy, photo-centric mobile interface for exploring tutorials on hundreds of home-improvement related projects, from reupholstering to basic carpentry to… well, actually, you’re probably on your own on the last one. Still, though, for the would-be Martha Stewart, Snapguide is an invaluable resource.

iHandy Level

Device: iOs, Android

There’s nothing more stressful than hanging a painting or a poster. For some reason, the poster that looks fine while you’re hanging it, will look obviously crooked to you the moment you step away, and to anyone else who enters your home for the remainder of your cursed existence.

Levels exist, but nobody actually has one, because they’re useful about two times a year if at all. Luckily, modern phones contain precise enough accelerometers that they can fake being a level at least as well as an actual level.

Align and hang photos or artwork with your phone. Use the app to measure angles, the verticality of a wall or furniture, and more. No more crooked pictures!

SnapShop

Platform: iOS

If you’re not sure how your new, neon-yellow plush beanbag chair will look in your new house, SnapShop can help. The app allows you drag furniture from a catalog into photographs, adjust the scale, and place them to see how it looks.

It just might save you from a neon-yellow plush beanbag.

 

Aaron Mills is a tech blogger and iPhone aficionado. He writes on behalf of Protect Your Bubble iPhone insurance brand and other companies.