How Unusual is your Ez-Architect Project?

Tell us how you are using Ez-Architect.

Are you a pro using it often for client projects?

Are you a do-it-yourselfer who plans and executes projects for your home or other location?

Do you do any unusual things with it, like design sets for theater productions, plays, videos etc.

We used it to design our set for The Perils of Cheryl. We came up with a brilliant scheme and it worked great. Watch the demo right here.

And tell us how you use Ez-Architect or MacDraft or MacInteriors, for that matter.

The more unusual, the more unusual……

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What kind of Features Do you Crave in Ez-Architect?

The developer does update Ez-Architect periodically. We have not come up with many new feature ideas as we believe the program is very complete and powerful as is.

Here are a few things we’ve come up with:

Text tools
1. improve text functionality. Have text operate in the more common way:
Select the text tool, drag a box and start typing. If the text gets too big for the box, expand the box automatically instead of forcing the user to expand it.

2. When you select a text box to edit and you click in it, make the cursor land where you click instead of at the beginning of the text.

Layers
1. Enable users to re-order the layers.
2. allow users to arrange layers: bring to front/send to back. Example: if you make a plan and then you want to add a layer with floor colors or patterns, it’s not easy to get the carpet beneath the floor (and furniture, if any).

General
don’t require users to install as admin

Object Properties
Change Dimensions
1. Add option to keep the aspect ratio so if one dimension changes, the other changes automatically to keep the aspect ratio.

Speak soon if you have an opinion. The above suggestions are pretty minor and wouldn’t likely comprise a major upgrade.

But if you’ve got a feature you’re craving for, you really need to tell us. Our M.O. has always been to listen to our users as we go to new versions. So if you aren’t talking (writing), we can’t give you what you want. The people who use our software a lot are the best experts. So we’ll lend you an ear, if you’re willing to “speak.”

Forgive me

I have been remiss. Not that I don’t love writing about Ez-Architect and MacDraft and MacInteriors, I have been doing something that I love even more. I admit it. Photography and Videography. Not that I can’t photo and video cool architecture. In fact I have. And I’ll share some of it with you.

I’ve been doing photos and videos for our upcoming DVD Microdrama. We have a model railroad (actually we have 2 railroads and a roller coaster, all n-scale), and we decided it was time to put live people on the railroad in a series of adventures that are still being edited. Yes, I’ll tell you when you can see them!

I have photographed some of the cool architecture on the layout, so I guess that counts for home design. It’s just that it was designed and built several years ago during layout construction.

Anyway, is it off topic or not? Who cares? I really wanted to write about it because I have been having so much fun. But I held myself back. Now, that’s really silly. Why not share, even if a bit off topic.

Railroad software really did help us design our layouts. So it’s not a totally obtuse stretch (if there is such a thing as an obtuse stretch) to consider it home design. After all, the layouts are in our home. And they were designed there, too.

(I promise, I’ll get back to the flood and the island before too long. I think it was bumming me out a bit to remember and write about that episode, even though the outcome was positive. The process was just was rough sometimes.)

So here’s some railroad architecture:

The Leadville Coal & Lead Mines

Off to the right is the Leadville lead mine, built from scratch by a very patient person. In the center is the abandoned coal mine, no longer operating. And though buildings don’t really operate on a layout, this one is clearly abandoned, with broken windows and decrepit parts.

Here’s another cool building:

Pat’s Ice Cream & Pastries. Built by Yours Truly.

What’s also been fun is that when the editor finds out that he needs another or a different shot, I can run over to the layout and shoot it right away, photo or video. That part’s been delightful.

Anyway, I hope you’ve enjoyed the diversion.

Please tell me what you think. Do you like diversions? Or do you want me to focus focus focus only on Ez-Architect and other home design related things?

How the Flood Created an Island, Part 3: What is a restoration Specialist anyway?

If you haven’t known or needed a restoration specialist, it’s not a bad thing. It means you probably haven’t experienced any major type of disaster or emergency in your home or business. Continue your vigilance about fire hazards, water mishaps, and all other types of safety and security, and perhaps you won’t need these types of services. And by all means, make sure you keep your home insurance policy up to date and paid for!

If you do happen to have a disaster be prepared to have some new really good friends that will be at your house pretty much every day for many months (timing depends on how disastrous your emergency was).

These people have amazing equipment, equipment that sucks moisture out of walls and ceilings and carpets. They move things from your house that you though could never be moved (kitchen cabinets, hall cabinets, paneling, ceilings all the way up to the joists, et al.) And they put them back…eventually.

Be prepared to have all possessions in the damaged areas boxed or moved to other locations, preferably somewhere in your house, so if you really need them, you can rummage through and dig up stuff. Be prepared for plenty of noise. Those machines are not silent. And also be prepared to totally rearrange your daily routines. In our case, our kitchen was basically totaled. So we had to set up cooking in our dining room. And that doesn’t mean we had a stove in there. Yet they moved the refrigerator. So we didn’t lose that aspect of survival. We had a hot plate, toaster, convection oven, the popcorn popper (of course), and microwave.

Below is the kitchen while they were drying it out. You can see that we were still using it as evidenced by the fresh lettuce on the counter. But it was noisy! Yikes. Painfully noisy. And this was just the first step. Ultimately all the lower cabinets were removed, and that’s when we moved into the dining room.

Our living and family rooms were full of boxes and items from the other rooms. But we were able to secure some areas so that we could still use parts of them during that time.

BTW, here’s the culprit filter.

More to come. This may take a while!

How the Flood Created and Island, Part 2: Oh, the Suspense

[It’s been a busy couple+ weeks here. Sorry about the delay.] The story continues.

Horrified we stared at the huge amount of water.

There were at 2 visible inches of water–maybe more, but who had a ruler at that moment–water all over the kitchen floor, not to wonder about where that water was flowing to and had flowed to for the last half hour. Of course, the kitchen floor isn’t like a container with sides; like most floors it has no edges, but continues smoothly without changing levels into the adjacent rooms. So the water didn’t stop at the doors. Oh no, it was seeping into the dining room via the carpet and into the hall carpets, and it wasn’t stopping.

First I found the culprit: the water filter under the sink, cracked and spraying water like some kind of pressure washer. I crawled under the wet sink and turned off the cold water, and then silence. But what next? I ran for the towels. I couldn’t think of anything else. In fact, every towel in the house was quickly on the kitchen floor. And there weren’t enough towels to begin to sop up the water. But the problem didn’t stop there.

Now most of us know that water tends to not go sideways when it can find a way to go down, and even though that kitchen floor looked solid, it didn’t fool the water. The water found its way down through the floor, down into the ceiling downstairs, in fact it found it’s way into the ceilings of three different rooms downstairs.

Never having been in a situation like this before, we really were stumped. So we called our handy dandy handyman, thinking he might have some magical cure. In other words, a disaster like this was way outside my experience. Turns out that he wasn’t something he could just handyman his way through. But happily he knew the people we should call.

So that night I learned about restoration specialists. I had never really heard of one before. Why would I? Unless something like this happens to you, you won’t ever have need of one of these! Not that they aren’t nice and yes they do have amazing devices to fix things up. And they work 24-7. So within an hour, several workers were swarming all over the damaged areas, setting up devices that suck water out of the air, pulling up the edges of the wet carpets, and generally turning a huge mess into some kind of organized chaos.

Thus began about 3 months of “restoration.”

You Still have Time for that Summer Project

Summer isn’t over yet. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some help with some of those projects we keep putting off?

I just did a little remodeling project and used Ez-Architect. With a good plan to start with–it made the whole project go seamlessly. I didn’t add an extra room but you may want to build one. We even did some landscape improvements and plan to do more this summer.

I used Ez-Architect for my design plans for Windows. If you’re a Mac user (I’m not) you can use MacDraft  PE, or MacDraft Professional for floor plans and house plans. Or if you want to redesign your interior (on the Mac), its Interiors or Interiors Professional that will provide you with all the tools you need.

And for Landscaping, you’ll want to use a really fun program called Landscape Vision (Windows) where you can take photographs of your current “design” and then use the software to make changes. Easy and fun.

Read more about Landscape Vision here

home photo with Landscape Vision design

More about Ez-Architect here

It’s easy to create a plan

and MacDraft and MacInteriors

MacDraft Professional Floor Plan

So don’t delay any longer. You can make a gorgeous space, inside or out.

Who doesn't want a place like this?

A quick video that will get you to love Interiors

Check it out! Interiors rules!

Interiors made this!

New! Interiors Professional Version 4.1

New ‘Bounds’ tool.

Interiors Professional now has a new Item Tag type called ‘Bounds’. Windows and doors were totally enclosed in a transparent box which fitted itself into the wall space when these items were placed on a wall. The new tag allows the user to create a similar box that will enclose only the part of the object that needs to be within the wall space. The rest of the object can hang outside this box allowing the easy production of open windows and doors, overhanging sills and complete bow windows.

Improved texture handling slashes file size & application speed

Improved handling of files where the same texture appears multiple times. Previously each instance of a texture was processed and saved separately. Now the program recognises instances of identical textures and keeps only one copy of each. This results in vastly smaller files and faster operation when room designs with multiple instances of the same texture are processed.

Free 3D Library

When you purchase either Interiors or Interiors Pro, you will be emailed a link to our 3D Home and Office Library. It’s yours for FREE. All objects are 3DS, which is what Interiors uses.

If you decide NOT to buy Interiors but you want this library, it’s only $49.95.

CONTENTS: There are 1,718 separate 3D objects and 485 texture images in this library, and its catalog is included.