Several months back, we did a site consultation with a client looking to add an ADU on their Cape Cod property.
They brought something new to the meeting: an AI-sketched floorplan and rendering.
That family was the first to do it, but several others have already followed suit. And in our experience already, it can be useful – as long as you have the right expectations.
Some people love AI, some are concerned about it or afraid of it, and others are everywhere in between. Here's our bottom line for homeowners:
- Is it necessary to have AI sketches to share with your designer and builder? NO. A good experienced designer can develop ideas and options from verbal descriptions, photos, Houzz lookbooks, Pinterest boards, you name it. We've been doing that for many years.
- Can it be helpful? ABSOLUTELY. It can help communicate richer ideas, faster.
- Will it give you a complete, buildable design? NO.
AI can be a great tool for visualizing and communicating about your home's design. It can help you clarify and refine what you want and what you like, as well as what you don't like.
How AI helps communicate your design ideas and preferences
For example: that ADU on the Cape. The sketch and rendering facilitated faster communication with our client. The rendering was helpful for zeroing in on the aesthetic they wanted, both for them and for us.
However, the scale and proportion, the distances relative to the street and the adjacent woods — those were all off. The spot where AI had placed the ADU was well over their setback in the front of the existing home, and would have required tons of special approvals from the town.
That's not because the family did something wrong. The right objective with AI isn't to produce a perfect construction document (as we noted above, it can't). They used it for what it's good at.
We took their sketches, together with their plot plan, and came back to them with three different versions showing where the ADU could be located on the property, all in the correct scale. Our clients found it extremely helpful.
Think of your AI-generated sketch as a communication tool, not a design document.
As a homeowner, you just need to have the right expectations about AI's strengths and limitations. Relying on an AI "design" and asking a neighborhood contractor to "start hammering nails" without a real architectural plan leads to heartache and unnecessary expense. Recently we got pinged by an unhappy homeowner who needed to tear down newly added dormers on their upper floor. Working with no formal design, a builder modified the roofline to add headspace, and the owners wound up feeling their home looks genuinely awful from several angles (unfortunately it does). Now they have to start over.
There's no reason to go through that pain. Here's how to think about AI in your home design process, use it for the right purposes, and get the most value from it.
6 tips for getting the most useful home design sketches and renderings from AI
1. Set your own expectations right. Think of your AI-generated sketch as a communication tool, not a design document. It won't be to scale, it won't account for structure or code, and it might show things that are physically impossible. Also, what AI produces can be completely out of whack with your budget, even when you give it numbers.
Think of it like a napkin sketch to show your home designer "here's the vibe I'm going for" — not a set of plans.
Striving for perfection and absolute precision is a good way to waste tons of your time and AI's energy, asking it to do something it can't (and without all the information needed for a full architectural design).
2. Start by giving the AI your basic "program," which means the basics of what you want to build. "I want to create a floor plan for a 3,200-sq.ft. custom home with two stories, four bedrooms, first-floor master suite, a large eat-in kitchen" et cetera. Be as specific as you can about dimensions, but at the same time don't stress about perfection.
3. Give the AI some stylistic guardrails or you'll get generic modern-farmhouse mush as your output. One or two styles, probably not more.
Uploading photos of what you like is very helpful.
AI is good at pulling real materials into a rendering, so you can include those likes and dislikes too.
4. Describe your goals in terms of function and feeling. "I want morning light while I drink coffee" or "I want to see the kids in the backyard from the sink" gives the AI context that pure square footage doesn't.
5. Iterate. Don't expect to get everything "right" with a single prompt. Do your best, follow the steps above, get the first sketch or rendering, then refine it: "That's close, but make the roofline a shed roof instead of gabled" or "Can you show that same addition but with more glass on the south wall?" This is also a good way to compare two different ideas or options.
6. Now work with your designer to refine and adjust! You've started your design conversation with AI; now it's time to bring in the humans. Home designers and architects will have a portfolio of ideas and solutions you may not have considered. (Where to put the ADU, better window arrangements, ceiling and roofline options, a layout modification that improves privacy or indoor/outdoor flow, and so on.) They have detailed knowledge of what's possible, what's not, and which choices are more efficient or more costly.
Our design process with GMT clients is always iterative. Refining the vision and then nailing down the options and details is a crucial aspect of designing a home that you will truly love.
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About the author: New Hampshire native Glenn M. Travis has more than 25 years' experience in home design.
GMT Home Designs has designed custom homes and remodels across New England. Ready to start yours? Reach out to us at info@gmthomedesigns.com.