7 iPhone Apps for Home Improvement
Was a home improvement project on your list of New Year's resolutions? If so, there are apps to help you with everything from cleaning the drapes to refinishing your floors.1. Color Capture and ColorSnap
Download: Color Capture from Benjamin Moore for iPhone and ColorSnap from Sherwin-Williams for iPhone
Price: Free
Repainting your bedroom? Maybe even the whole house? Choosing a color to paint your walls can be pretty intimidating -- there are thousands of options! And what if you already have a color in mind but aren't sure how to find it in the paint aisle at the hardware store? Maybe you want to paint your bathroom walls to match a certain color towel or paint your living room to match the sofa.
These apps can help. Using your phone's camera, you can take a picture of anything you like, and the app will analyze the colors in the photo and show you the closest match in its color line. Color Capture is available for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and Android phones; ColorSnap is available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry. Both apps are free.
2. iHandy CarpenterWith this app, $1.99 buys you 5 essential tools for home improvement. There's a plumb bob, a surface level, a bubble level bar, a steel protractor, and a ruler. While it probably won't replace the real thing if you want to be absolutely certain that your walls are straight or your measurements are accurate, it's very handy for quick estimations.
3. HomeSmarts
Download: HomeSmarts for iPhone
Price: Free
This free app is designed to help you remember all the tasks that go into maintaining a home. HomeSmarts starts with a short survey to gather basic information about your home, including the type of heating and cooling system you have, whether or not you have a pool or a garage, and so on. Once it has this information, it will create a yearly schedule of items that need your attention, and you can adjust how you receive alerts.
The developers of this app have quite a sense of humor, making you smile with messages like "shoveling coal into the servers" and "charging the flux capacitor" as it's loading up your items.
4. Home MaintenanceDownload: Home Maintenance for iPhone
Price: $4.99
Much like HomeSmarts, Home Maintenance helps you keep track of home maintenance tasks. This app costs $4.99 but includes a much wider range of features and capabilities. You can add more than one house and note facts like the date it was built, date purchased, purchase price, and appraised value. For each house, you can then add custom tasks or choose from predefined lists such as chimney cleaning and deck maintenance. You can even add photos for any item and email yourself a complete maintenance record.
Finding it hard to motivate yourself to get those chores done? Finding it hard to motivate your kids to get their chores done? Chore Pad can help! Add the members of your household, then add as many chores as you want, assign them to different people, and set up their frequency. You can also set up rewards, and as you complete tasks, you collect stars that you can then turn in for rewards. Get your kids to clean up their rooms by bribing -- er, motivating -- them with, say, a trip to the ice cream shop. At $2.99, this app is both affordable and useful.
6. HandyMan Sidekick
Download: HandyMan Sidekick for iPhone
Price: $1.99
This highly recommended home improvement app does it all. Whether you're painting or wallpapering a room, putting mulch in your garden, or trying to figure out how much drywall you'll need, just plug in the dimensions of your space, subtract any doors and windows, and figure out exactly how much you'll need. There's also a handy metric-to-imperial (and back) converter and a flashlight so you can see in those small, dark corners of the house.
Download: HandyMan Sidekick for iPhone
Price: $1.99
This highly recommended home improvement app does it all. Whether you're painting or wallpapering a room, putting mulch in your garden, or trying to figure out how much drywall you'll need, just plug in the dimensions of your space, subtract any doors and windows, and figure out exactly how much you'll need. There's also a handy metric-to-imperial (and back) converter and a flashlight so you can see in those small, dark corners of the house.
Much like HandyMan Sidekick, Handy Man DIY offers calculators to help you figure out how much paint, wallpaper, flooring, or trim you need to complete your project. You can also create shopping lists (or choose from prebuilt options), store room dimensions for later use, create lists of tasks for each project, or check seasonal reminders of home maintenance tasks for various times of the year.
Now you have no excuse to get cracking on that to-do list! Except perhaps that it's a gorgeous day and there's fresh iced tea in the fridge... but at least with these handy apps, you'll be able to get your chores done sooner and enjoy the spring!
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