Four must-have home decorating apps
The Homestyler app enables homeowners to place 3-D digital versions of furniture in rooms about the house. Credit: Newsday / Easyhome Shejijia Furnishing
Want to give your home a Memorial Day makeover without spending any money? Or perhaps your house is on the market and you’re looking for ways to sell it fast. With these apps, you can transform your home digitally by adding everything from new furniture to new floors, giving you ideas to make your house more livable or more sellable.
Homestyler
(iOS, Android; free)
Homestyler not only lets you place 3-D digital versions of furniture, you can also “erase” your current home items, “hang” new light fixtures, and even change the color of your walls and add flooring. The app also offers advice on interior design, and you can connect with other Homestyler users to discuss their home-improvement triumphs and disasters.
IKEA Place
(iOS, Android; free)
The home-products seller has hit a home run with this app, which lets you “place” realistically rendered 3-D IKEA furniture items in your home to see how they will look before you buy them. The app uses advanced augmented reality engines, so it is compatible only with iPhones 6 or later and newer Android devices. Best of all, you don’t have to assemble the digital furniture.
Curate by Sotheby’s Realty
(iOS, Android; free)
This app from home seller Sotheby’s is perfect for home buyers, home sellers and real estate agents because you can “stage” a home with interior designs to make it more appealing. The app uses a curated selection of design ideas, so it’s a great tool for real estate agents and their clients. Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International in Cold Spring Harbor, one of the first organizations to use the app with its clients, says it removes some of the “guesswork of the home buying and selling experience.”
Houzz
(iOS, Android; free)
One of the most popular home-improvement and design apps, Houzz can give you ideas and inspiration with its library of millions of photos of home interiors and exteriors. You can digitally place the items in your home. And you can read reviews, buy products or hire professionals such as decorators, contractors and architects through the app.
Amazon ends Google ad buys
Amazon has stopped buying high-priced Google ads that appear at the top of search results. The move signals Amazon’s growing ambitions in digital advertising and deepens the growing rift between the tech giants. It is a rare setback for Google’s massively successful Shopping ads, where retailers pay handsomely to place colorful ads that show up prominently when consumers look online for products. -- Bloomberg News
Bad ’Nite
If you want to play Fortnite on your Android device, beware. The video game sensation, with 45 million players, is available only for PCs, PlayStation, Xbox and iOS. Impatient Android users downloading what is claimed to be Fortnite from disreputable websites are instead getting malware, according to researchers at ThreatLabZ. A genuine Android version of Fortnite will be released this summer.
Old Boss is new boss
Record Store Day was a boost for bosses of independent record stores — and the Boss. During the annual event, which marked its 11th year April 21, indie music fans descended on locally owned record stores to show their love for old-tech vinyl records. In conjunction with the event, independent retailers sold 733,000 LPs, according to Nielsen Music. Bestselling album: Bruce Springsteen’s “Greatest Hits
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