Overview

Create your first room by selecting the 2D option from the top-left corner menu. Start with the wall tool from the top-center menu to draw out the dimensions of your room. By clicking and dragging the lines of your walls, you can resize them as needed so that they match the dimensions of your room down to the exact inch. Double-click to end your wall, or you can single-click where it ends in one direction and continue drawing the connecting wall that branches off in another direction.

If you make a mistake at any time, you can click on any item you messed up and hit the “delete” key to remove it. The other beauty of this program is that you can click and drag on each element of your floor-plan design to reposition it or resize at any time too.

The master “building settings” icon in the top-right corner of the screen is an important shortcut option. In one click, view and change your material selections for the floor, ceiling, interior and exterior wall materials, wall thickness or view the total square footage all in one place. It makes this important information easily accessible to you at all times.

You have the freedom to position the walls at any angle you need while you click and drag them to adjust their size. The program automatically recognizes separate rooms between connected walls. You can add virtual walls to define each different area in a larger room, which lets you give different colors to the walls and floors in each section.

After setting up the walls of your room, click on the empty space in the whole room you’ve created. You’ll see options in the righthand sidebar menu appear for choosing your floor material, wall material and ceiling material. Each drop-down menu lets you move between selections of textiles, wallpapers, leather, tiles, stones, marbles, plasters, metals, carpets, glass and bricks.

You can add your own new surface image into your virtual design wherever you want. Take a photo of the textile material or other surface material you want to use. Then when you select a material and choose to edit it, click on the “import” button under the surface-image heading to use your photo in your design. This way, you’ll know what your room looks like with your favorite wallpaper or couch fabric.

To add a door, just click on the “Door” icon at the top of the screen, click where you want it in the floor plan and enter the dimensions in the specifications at the right sidebar. The door shape can be a simple rectangle, half-rounded or a sliding style. Select either the single or double door option. Choose the opening direction of your door and its thickness. Then select the handle styles your prefer, which you can customize separately for each of the outside and inside handles. Choose the material of the handles from the drop-down menus too.

To insert windows, select the “window” icon from the top-center menu. Click where you want your window in the 2D floor plan; then click and drag it to resize it or move it.
Pick a square, rectangular or round window shape. Then enter the number of partitions in your window. Use the sliding scale next to partitions selection to add additional window panes. You’ll see a preview of your window choice in the top-right corner of your screen. The opening direction of your windows, their opening angle, thickness of frames and handle selections are all customizable like they are with your door options. Plus, you can select any of seven options for your curtains or blinds. The style of your curtains and curtain rod is fully adjustable too.

When you add a staircase, you’ll need to add your additional level. Selecting “duplicate level” in one click copies the structure you’ve set up on the ground floor instantly.

Add a staircase by clicking on the “Stair” icon at the top-center of the screen. Then just drag and drop it into place, and you can also click again to insert multiple staircases.

Pick one of four staircase shapes:

• simple, traditional, one-direction stairs
• L-shaped
• half-spiral
• or the full-spiral staircase if you want to save space

Intuitive clicking and dragging lets you resize and reposition your staircase so that you can see which dimensions will best fit your space. Then you can select handy pivot icons to help you rotate it within your floor plan so that it faces the way you want it. Click on the “+” icon in the right-sidebar menu to extend the staircase automatically up to additional levels if needed. Select an automatic number of steps to match your dimensions. The manual step option allows resizing of the staircase to the number of steps you want or the step height your prefer. Choose your banister-side preferences and add the dimensions of the railing you want. Pick the materials you want to make the stairs out of.

MyFourWalls has 20 different furniture categories and 500 adjustable furniture items alone.

Any furnishing you add to your design can go anywhere you want. From the furniture menu that remains fixed on the left sidebar, you can select any of the following to place anywhere in any of your rooms:

Once you insert a new piece of furniture somewhere, like in your living room, then you can customize it and adjust the size of it until you like the way that it looks in your room. You can change the size, color and type of furniture easily in the sidebar menus. If you don’t like a material on the surface of the couch, for example, just open up the menu to change the material to create a whole new couch. You have no limits to the colors you can choose for your furniture either. When you select the “Edit” option from any material choice you selected, you can select the right color from a color wheel in any shade possible.

The MyFourWalls app is only $26.99 in the App Store, and you can try the demo for free to see its capabilities. MyFourWalls runs on a Mac with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later.