{"id":562,"date":"2026-10-26T16:53:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T15:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/lab\/home-furnishing-simulator\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T16:53:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T15:53:28","slug":"home-furnishing-simulator","status":"publish","type":"lab_project","link":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/lab\/home-furnishing-simulator\/","title":{"rendered":"Home furnishing simulator"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"The<\/a>
The simulator: the whole home in 3D, with the furniture catalogue on the left. The tool is in Italian.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The need<\/h2>\n

We are buying a house, and working out how to furnish it can be extremely hard: you are confused by the current owners’ furniture, you struggle to picture the empty spaces, and you are bombarded with a thousand options. So I thought of rebuilding it digitally to try things out, starting from the floor plan, but the one we have is a photo full of numbers that no software seemed to read correctly. Not only that: many programs require a subscription, either to use them or even just to rebuild the plan on your own from the photo. I had no intention of wasting time in this first phase. I wanted to focus on the part I cared about, designing the furnishing.<\/p>\n

A first attempt that failed<\/h2>\n

First of all I tried working with images only, so, starting from the floor plan and the photos of the house, I asked ChatGPT to suggest possible furnishing. Aesthetically the result was really excellent, but how closely it matched the measurements and the real layout of the house was very low.<\/p>\n

So I decided to change approach, but for a long time I struggled to work out which strategy was best.<\/p>\n

How I built it<\/h2>\n

One Sunday, while I was pondering how to solve the problem, I thought I could simply do what many other vibe coders have done before me: give a program as a reference.<\/p>\n

So I asked Claude Code to create a system similar to SketchUp, attaching the photo of the floor plan and explaining what I wanted to do with this mini-program and how I wanted to interact with it.<\/p>\n

The initial result was already incredible: in a few minutes I had a working simulator, both in 2D and in 3D, with a list of (simplified) furniture to place, the ability to change the floor and the walls, controls to place, rotate or delete items, the ability to edit the floor plan and a first-person view to drop me into a room and appreciate the result of my efforts.<\/p>\n

At that point I started designing my new home and, as the work went on, I started asking Claude to add new elements and new features (such as the ability to raise furniture vertically, like shelves, so as to place them correctly on the wall). In addition, whenever I found furniture I liked online, I asked Claude to rebuild that item \u2013 with simplified shapes but correct measurements \u2013 and add it to the catalogue, so I could put it in my virtual home.<\/p>\n

Over time, mirrors, plants, books, laptops, rugs and much more were added. Today the simulator has everything I need to experiment and make more informed decisions. And one day it could be useful to someone else too: the simulator does not write changes into its code but saves a .json file that lets you restore the project at any time or create new ones.<\/p>\n

\n\"The<\/a>
Walking inside the home: the kitchen, with the stone wall made from a reference image.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What I learned<\/h2>\n

At the start of this adventure I was almost ready to give up on the idea of designing the house: my searches were going nowhere, I did not like the software I tested, and every time I ran into the problem of having to enter the measurements by hand, risking mistakes and wasting time.<\/p>\n

This project reminded me, first of all, that one of the great advantages of AI is being able to create something from scratch based on your specific needs, without settling for what the market offers.<\/p>\n

It also reminded me that using AI can be extremely fun and, above all, that sometimes I do not have to struggle to explain to the AI what it should create: often it is enough to give a reference. The SketchUp reference, in this case, saved me countless prompts, countless words and countless moments of discouragement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 2D and 3D simulator to furnish the home we are buying, built from a photo of the floor plan: I place, rotate and raise furniture, change the wall colours one by one and walk through the rooms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","project_status":[19],"project_type":[29],"class_list":["post-562","lab_project","type-lab_project","status-publish","hentry","project_status-built","project_type-web"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/lab_project"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lab_project\/562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"project_status","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_status?post=562"},{"taxonomy":"project_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikagherardi.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/project_type?post=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}