PlaceAnew for homeowners: plan the remodel before the first contractor visit

Walk in with your own numbers

Most remodels start the same way: three contractors walk through the house, each with a tape, each writes down slightly different numbers, and three weeks later you hold three bids you cannot compare. One counted the hallway, one did not. One priced 220 square feet of flooring, another 260.

PlaceAnew flips that. You scan the house first, in one walk, and every contractor gets the same plan with the same square footage. Their bids differ on price and workmanship, which is the part you actually want to compare.

What one walk gives you

• A measured floor plan with room names and the square footage of every room and the whole home, doors and windows in place.
• Your home in 3D, furniture included, from above like a dollhouse. Turn it, zoom in, tap a room.
• Walk: the video of your walk, lined up with the plan, to show a contractor a corner or a window without them coming over.
• A PDF report with the plan, every room's area, and every door and window, ready to send by Mail or Messages.
• Files for professionals: PDF report, SVG drawing, DXF for CAD and USDZ 3D model, so your architect or designer can start in their own software.

Try the new kitchen in your own room first

The kitchen designer opens on the kitchen you scanned, with its real walls, doors and windows. Add base and wall cabinets, counters and appliances, move them around, try door and counter styles and colors, and see cabinet prices as you go. Save pictures to Photos to show your family, and bring the layout to the contractor instead of starting from a blank page.

Get bids you can actually compare

California's Contractors State License Board tells homeowners to get at least three written bids, to compare them on identical plans, specifications and scope of work, not to take the lowest bid automatically, and to check the contractor's license.^[1] The Federal Trade Commission says the same: get three written estimates.^[2]

Identical plans are the hard part, and that is what a scan gives you.

A plan makes that advice work. Send every contractor the same PDF and ask them to price the same rooms, the same square footage and the same doors and windows. If one bid comes in far lower, you can see whether it left something out.

What a scan cannot tell a contractor

A scan measures what the camera can see. It does not know what is behind the drywall, whether a wall is load-bearing, where the pipes and wires run, or what your city's permit requires. That is what the contractor's visit is for, and with your plan in hand, the visit goes to those questions instead of to the tape. The bid comes back sharper.

PlaceAnew is open about what it did not see: a wall it could not see is drawn dashed, and anything it estimated is marked "estimate".

How to scan your home

1. Turn on the lights and open the blinds. Apple recommends good light for RoomPlan, the technology PlaceAnew is built on.^[3]
2. Open the interior doors so the app can follow you from room to room.
3. Walk slowly and sweep the camera from floor to ceiling along each wall.
4. One floor at a time. Apple designed multi-room scanning for single-floor homes up to about 2,000 square feet.^[4] Scan each floor of a bigger house on its own.
5. Look over the plan. Dashed walls and "estimate" labels show what PlaceAnew filled in, and the editor fixes a wall or a door in seconds.

Questions homeowners ask

Scan one room tonight. If the plan surprises you, scan the rest before the first contractor rings the bell.