There’s An App For That
Is there really an app for that? Probably.
Nowadays there is an App for just about everything. Where to eat, where to shop, where to find the best music. Apps have entrenched themselves into our daily lives, across work, play and into the Home. We carry our phones with us everywhere we go — whether it be our living room, work space, or even the bathroom. Tina Holmes, Toronto Home Shows Show Manager has scoured the web and her phone to find a a few of the best that we are excited to share with you.
The good news is that apps have transformed the process: you can now decorate, rearrange or transform an entire area, from the hues of the walls down to the colour of the furniture, all from your smartphone.
Paint matching mobile apps can help you get just the right shades of paint you need for your painting and redecorating needs. Good paint matching apps allow you to match color swathes from images in your gallery or camera roll, as well as preview how the paint will look with other colours.
Many of the major paint lines will have their own associated apps, from Behr’s ColorSmart (Android, iOS) and Sherwin-Williams’ ColorSnap (Android, iOS), Color Smart by BEHR, each with their own features and extras such as store locators.
Benjamin Moore Color Capture
Capture colours anywhere with Benjamin Moore Colour Capture ™. Snap a picture of any colour inspiration that catches your eye and instantly get the match from Benjamin Moore’s more than 1,700 paint colours. Looking for just the right colors for a design project? Instead of perusing hundreds of paint chips, look for inspiration in your daily environment, capture it and match it to a paint color with the Benjamin Moore Color Capture tool for iPhone and Android phones.
The benefit after your project is complete, you can store your paint colours with numbers in the Combo section for easy reference rather than carrying around the paint strips.
ColorSmart by BEHR
ColorSmart is an excellent app for matching tones before you paint, whether you’re going with BEHR paint or not. You can choose tone families so if you’re trying to avoid a grey that looks purple in certain lights, a tap rules out colors that fit that gamut. It doesn’t get any easier this when it comes to picking paint colors and palettes.
Great features include browse or search Behr’s extensive library of over 2,500 colours or use the colour match feature to take a photo, then tap on the image to get the closest colour. Plus preview your colour choices by selecting from a gallery of room images and styles.
Mansion Homes
Mansions & Dream Homes – Celebrity Millionaire Modern Houses and Luxury Interior Designs
Mansion Homes is quickly becoming the best place to find unique luxury properties worldwide. View thousands of high resolution photos and interior design pictures. Plus descriptions from realtors or on select properties, you can read curious and interesting stories about the property’s history or owners.
– Over 100,000 curated photos of amazing architecture and interior design
– Hundreds of celebrity houses like Kim Kardashian, Billy Joel, Celine Dion and Brad Pitt
– Share photos and houses with your friends
– Save your favorite houses
– Filter houses by keyword such as waterfront and infinity pool
– Sort houses by architectural style
– Daily featured houses include interesting stories and/or detail history about fun, creative and mega mansions
Photo Measure Lite
Photo Measures is the most elegant and the easiest way to save measures on your own photos on iPhone and iPad. Snap a picture of your space, then add in measurements for a visual reminder of the dimensions. You can organize photos by room, too.
Image courtesy of manufacturer
iHandy level
One of the 5 tools of iHandy Carpenter toolkit. This is a great app for the average handyman to have. It is very accurate and easy to use.
iHandy Carpenter takes advantage of your iPhone or iPad’s built-in sensors to turn your device into a handy set of tools. The surface level and bubble level bar let you check flat surfaces, while a plumb bob allows you to check the verticality of walls. A steel protractor lets you measure angles of up to 180 degrees, while an onscreen ruler enables small measurements in inches and centimeters.
Snap Guide
For the ultimate source of ‘How-To’ a must in your app portfolio. SnapGuide is easily among the most visually attractive crowd sourced how to apps online. Discover and create how-to guides on all your favorite topics, new recipes, DIY projects, repairs, hacks that come loaded with detailed instructions and full page photo guides. Users can view featured guides, check out a variety of topics from gardening, automotive, arts & crafts, and other projects, as well as popular and recently uploaded guides. Users can comment on, like, and share guides, or even create new guides of their own.
Image courtesy of snapguide
The connected home is rapidly becoming a reality. Many manufacturers are building convenient apps to assist in making your home smart and connected.
Lift Master and the MyQ® Connected Home
Left Your Garage or Gate Open? No Problem. Imagine receiving an alert if you left your garage or gate open. Or being able to turn on your lights before you got home. LiftMaster® MyQ® Technology does this by letting you monitor, open and close your garage door or gate and control your home lighting from anywhere – all from your smartphone.
NEST
Meet the next generation thermostat. Most people leave the house at one temperature and forget to change it. So the Nest Learning Thermostat learns your schedule, programs itself and can be controlled from your phone. Teach it well and the Nest Thermostat can lower your heating and cooling bills up to 20%. Nest on the go. Use the Nest app to connect to your thermostat from a phone. Getting in early? Change the temperature miles from home. Great benefit if you escape our cold winter months you can use Nest app to turn on the heat so it’s warm upon you arriving home.
BigOven
Let us not forget about the food!
Find Inspiration for your next meal with BigOven. Access over 350,000 recipes, featured collections and menus, curated by season, holiday, course, lifestyle, diet and more. With more than 11 million downloads, BIG Oven is the most complete tool to help home cooks get inspired and organized in the kitchen and on-the-go.
Store your recipes in one spot. Simple all you have to do is add your recipes once — they’re synchronized for you, available anywhere from the grocery store to the kitchen countertop.
Weber’s On the Grill
Grilling may be the staple of summer, but it’s hard to find a large variety of quality grilling recipes online. Weber’s On the Grill makes it easy, supplying not only 250 different recipes for an entire grill-prepared meal — dessert and all —but the whole process for preparing the dish. You can add and delete items on your grocery list once you select a recipe, and then, when it’s time to add fire to the equation, you can enter the thickness of the meat and the app will automatically adjust the grilling time and temperature accordingly.
BrightNest
Keep your home in great shape without breaking a sweat! BrightNest helps you tackle important home maintenance tasks with our easy tips, personal schedule and helpful reminders. From simple cleaning tricks to interior design ideas, the app helps deliver everything you need to shape up your home and simplify your life.
Houzz
Called the “Wikipedia of Interior Design”, Houzz is a social network dedicated to architecture, interior design and home improvement. The official Houzz app on Android and iOS serves as a massive repository of articles, discussions, and photographs that budding home improvement mavens and interior design addicts can consult for inspiration and help. Whether you’re looking for DIY ideas, design inspiration, interesting pieces of furniture or simply want to get in touch with local professionals or talented amateurs, Houzz has something for you.
Remodelista
Ideal for the do-it-yourself renovator or the dreamer, Remodelista is a sourcebook for interior design, architecture and style. Users can browse the daily content, which is sorted by categories such as kitchen, living and dining for inspiration.
The latest version is so popular, it has 980 ratings with an average of four and a half stars. The LITE version is free.
Special thanks to Toronto Show Manager
Tina Holmes a.k.a. @TinaLovesPinot for helping put
together the post!
Toronto Home Shows “We’ve got you covered”
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We’d love to know what your favourite apps are! Please feel free to share them below.
