would you pay for this?

[LarryDuff]

Just toying with an idea. If you could give someone details of your house and a basic floor plan (or link to rightmove) and they drew up a new layout based on your needs (open plan/extension etc), within permitted development and give you some 3D images based on actual location, how the sun moves throughout the year etc. and a rough idea of costs?

It would still need structural calcs etc and proper drawings if you actually went ahead but it's more a quick and cheap way to see the potential that a house might have without paying the full price of a detailed design by an architect or builder.

Isn't this the sort of thing an interior designer would do? I see Karen at One Plan's name mentioned on here a lot. I would have thought it would be the type of service she would provide.

A local estate agent always puts floor plans and then a ‘suggested layout’. I think it’s a clever hook. I’d speak to local estate agents, I bet our one would say ‘Larry’ can do xxx for you if you want to see how it could look. They love having the edge, helps get houses on their books.

@LarryDuff - If you provided a client with this sort of service, would you be prepared to give a refund if your suggestions were not possible?

@MilkTwoSugarsThanks as our architect said, anything is possible, but affordable is another matter!

I'd be interested in a service which looks at at existing house and has small changes to the layout to maximise storage. Not interested in the extension side of things though.

We paid someone who called themself an "architectural technician" (no idea if this is a regulated profession, we were impressed with his snazzy website ), although to be fair he visited our house to measure up and discuss options. Cost £250 for the visit and basic Cad drawings. But then we still had to pay structure engineer to visit and measure up and send calculations, which cost a further £450.

One of the builders we had out to quote gave us the exact same information and suggestions for free. He also had a deal with a structural engineer who would have only charged us £350 for the same work.

People on the Houzz site do what you are suggesting using the basic software available at home for free, and there are also businesses on there that offer a similar paid service

One of my relatives does something similar in the States. He’s an Interior Architect. In almost all countries you do need to be a qualified architect to do this. You could potentially partner up with an architect who doesn’t like interior design and offer both services that way?

I would pay for this only if it counted against the bill if I went for full drawings. Sort of a preliminary meeting with an architect that I would pay for, knowing that if I went ahead it would be part of the project. But for that I'd want a trained architect, as I can visualise the usual 'love it or list it' type transformations, though I guess some people can't.