When my wife and I moved into our apartment, I was excited to decorate. We’d been in a studio, so our new one bedroom felt like a palace. We actually have a door we can shut that divides our living room and bedroom? What a luxury. New Yorkers can sympathize.
Our super helped us move our dresser and bed, which we’d planned to reposition once we’d settled in. That was three years ago. “It’s too heavy to move on our own” is our excuse now.
I’d seen posts about people using artificial intelligence to help decorate their house. Tools like ReImagineHome and MyRoomDesigner offer virtual staging and room redesigns but can come with a cost.
I’d also used the free version of ChatGPT before to try out hairstyles, see how I’ll age, create greeting cards and generate a baby book. Surely it could play interior designer for my bedroom and living room.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
AI room designer
I decided to log in because ChatGPT might be able to extract some design ideas from my past conversations with the chatbot. For instance, it knows I’m a traveler, a writer and Australian. That might influence its suggestions for interior styles.
I took three photos of our bedroom, then the living room. Our bedroom needs a lot of love. Our living room is cute, but we still haven’t figured out where to put our new TV, because we like the couch next to the window.
Let’s start with the bedroom. I uploaded the following photos, with this prompt:
“Here’s our bedroom. It’s spacious but not arranged well. Act as my interior designer and transform this room. I’d like the bed near the window. Add features that are missing. Swap out the bedding cover, add bedside tables etc.”
Excuse the messy room.
My bedroom as it is now, from three different angles.
ChatGPT generated a list of ideas first, which was handy because I could provide feedback on that list before it generated images. I liked the majority of the suggestions, so I asked it to generate a mock-up.
Some of the AI-generated suggestions for how to improve the layout of my bedroom.
It took a few minutes for my AI room designer to work its magic. And ooh la la!
A redesigned living room, but with a new dresser that isn’t ours.
It even tried to incorporate the wall hangings we have, like my wife’s New York paintings. It did change the color and size of our dresser with the big mirror, so I replied asking for a rationale.
Given that it’s a statement piece in the room, the AI chatbot agreed we should keep it. Don’t just accept whatever AI suggests, as it’s a people pleaser.
It generated the same image as above, but with my blue dresser this time. It definitely got me excited to spend my Saturday shifting things around in our bedroom.
Redesigning the living room with ChatGPT
Now on to the living room. I wanted to see if ChatGPT could come up with a spot for our TV, without changing the room layout.
Here’s what I mean about the TV being out of place:
Our living room currently. The TV stands in a corner of the room on the floor, so I asked ChatGPT for advice on where I should place it.
This was my prompt: “This is our living room. We like the look and layout but need to make improvements to the artwork on the wall above the dresser, as well as the ottoman and TV placement. We don’t want to move our couch because we like sitting at the window. Provide some style and placement options.”
Let’s see if it can solve it, I thought, and not just generate pretty pictures.
But at this point, ChatGPT was prompting me to upgrade to paid, to attach more photos. Sneaky. I had to open a new chat, which was annoying.
Like with my bedroom, it gave me a list of ideas first:
Again, I liked most of the suggestions, so I went straight into the visual mock-up. But this one was awkward. Is AI trying to tell us to look out the window more than at the screen? Touche.
ChatGPT redesigned our living room nicely, but with the TV in the corner at a right angle to the couch.
Though I liked the look, and it gave us an idea to move the lounge to face the window, but in the middle of the room, it didn’t solve the TV issue or provide a visual idea for something behind the TV. We also don’t want the lounge blocking the way to the kitchen.
But then ChatGPT started to change the layout of the room, including moving a doorway, and kept the TV in a neck-bending position in relation to the couch:
ChatGPT redesigned our living room but moved the doorway.
I asked ChatGPT not to change the room layout and to provide more TV placement options. This was better.
ChatGPT suggested putting our TV stand in the doorway.
I asked how to avoid the TV cabinet obstructing the path to the kitchen and what we should replace the ottoman with. Here’s what it generated next — but it went back to changing the layout of the room, moving (and adding) doorways.
ChatGPT suggested a wall-mounted TV but created doorways where there are none.
ChatGPT was getting a little unhinged at this point.
We kind of got there in the end, but AI has a way of making items fit perfectly in a room, when in reality they wouldn’t. Our TV wouldn’t fit in this corner, for instance, but it got us thinking about buying a smaller one so it would.
We need a smaller TV to make this layout work.
You could even take the process further by feeding ChatGPT photos of furniture you want to buy, and asking it to place those pieces in the room. I might do that for the TV cabinet or ottoman replacement. But just be wary of sizing.
Overall, it was a superfun exercise and gave me a bunch of new style ideas for these rooms. Just measure everything to make sure that what AI has suggested will actually work.
