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How Digital Wizardry Lets Shoppers ‘Install’ Furniture Before Buying

In my late twenties I had the crazy idea of painting my bedroom red. As a writer, I covered bold design moves and wow moments, so why not try my own?

Unfortunately, when the paint dried, the shade looked like the hot pink lipstick favored by the 1950s geriatric set. After six months, I painted over the agitating color with Benjamin Moore’s very safe Sidewalk Gray.

I made other decorating blunders, too: a Parsons-style dining table, so cool in Domino magazine, dwarfed everything in my small apartment; a trio of one-of-a-kind embroidered Indian pillows painfully clashed with the graphic prints on my curtains and pillows.

I’m pretty typical, it turns out. “With design, most people have a hard time understanding what a space will look like,” explained Anthony Deen, managing partner of Brooklyn’s Place + Make Design, and adjunct professor at New York’s Parsons School of Design.

Now new technology is helping amateurs envision furniture in their spaces in sophisticated ways not possible just 18 months ago. Photo-realistic computer imagery renders rooms in scale and perspective and includes both “sunlight” and “shadows.” You can view this 3-D imagery in 360 degrees (panning vertically as well as horizontally, as with Google Street View) on any desktop or mobile device.

Another new tool, augmented reality (AR), essentially merges objects in the virtual world with the real world as viewed through your smartphone’s camera. The technology existed last year, but Apple’s new iOS11 and its ARKit software has made developing AR apps easier. Predictably, they’re proliferating. Now, instead of nabbing a Pokémon Squirtle at the corner of Main and South Streets, you can pull a 3-D image of an Eames Eiffel chair up to your kitchen table, as long as you’ve downloaded iOS11 or have one of a few Android phone models. Virtual reality takes it up a notch, putting you “inside” a designed virtual room. “It is a matter of both the hardware technology and software algorithms coming together at the right time,” said Mr. Deen. “It is finally taking off for consumers.”

The result: Now you can play before you pay. These technologies let shoppers make fewer mistakes when ordering furniture because they give people a clear sense of scale and let them try out different designs easily, said New York architect and interior designer Campion Platt. “The tools open an entirely new window for those who cannot afford, or do not want, an interior designer. That would be 85% of the market.”

I decided to use my bedroom to test out the new gadgetry. I hoped, with a budget of $5,000, to take my space from conventional (floral headboard, inherited vintage furniture) to something more glamorous—without leaving my apartment.

Only a handful of brands, including IKEA, Wayfair, Amazon and Houzz, have launched AR features or apps. You click on furniture you like, hover your camera over the floor so the app can calibrate scale, then point your phone’s camera at the spot in your room where you’d like to “place” the item. Click once and the object appears in your space. Continue to aim your phone at the virtual piece and you can walk around it, scrutinizing from all angles. Zooming the camera reveals details such as the nap of velvet upholstery or the sheen of silk.

One glitch hung me up: The virtual beds I favored kept “hovering” above my own. Shrenik Sadalgi, associate director at Wayfair Next, Wayfair’s R&D group, explained why: “While ARKit is great at detecting flat surfaces such as floors, beds and tables, it cannot distinguish between them.” I found the apps worked best dropping furniture into an empty space.

The AR apps were most helpful for weeding out objects too big or too small for my space. IKEA promises the 3-D products on their IKEA Place are 98% accurate and Wayfair and Houzz show the dimensions of the piece as you view it.

IKEA’s AR app features more than 2,000 3-D items, Wayfair has “tens of thousands” and Houzz’s site claims half a million. Still, I’d often be attracted to a design that couldn’t be viewed in 3-D, so I was both a little frustrated and overwhelmed. Other folks are apparently finding satisfaction, however: Houzz, which offers products for sale, says people who engaged with the AR tool were 11 times more likely to purchase.

For those who want more direction, two new e-design sites, Modsy and Decorilla, offer design services in combination with new rendering technology. They don’t use AR and don’t require any particular operating system.

To sign up for Modsy—which partners with over 100 retailers, from West Elm to ABC Home—I snapped photos of my room from eight vantage points: all four corners and the center of each wall. I uploaded them with a Pinterest link of favorite bedrooms, then took a 15-minute style quiz. In 10 days, two designs generated by a combination of algorithm and human stylist arrived via email. For each, I received remarkably realistic 3-D renderings from four vantage points along with a 360-degree view.

I preferred Design 2, even though the calming gray wall color was a mistake (the service is actually supposed to match your current color). Sleek brass gooseneck lamps replaced my clunky swing-arm versions. In lieu of my bulky desk was CB2’s slim, architectural marble-and-brass Dahlia desk. A painted double chest of drawers upped my storage options. My TV was replaced with intriguing abstract art from Minted. Did I even need a TV in my bedroom?

Though the basic price is $69, I’d sprung for the $199 package, which lets you work with a stylist to finalize the design. For an hour, I schemed with Karina via my phone’s screen to warm up the space with color, pattern and art.

Seeing everything to scale proved invaluable. I had dreamed of a four-poster or canopy bed but worried my 187-square-foot bedroom with 8-foot ceilings couldn’t handle it. On a whim, I chose a simple wood canopy option (all frame, no draping) from Pottery Barn, which completely worked. I ultimately found a design I loved and would not have imagined alone.

Next stop was Decorilla, which pairs you with a live designer from the start and pulls from 200 partner brands, many discounted 5% to 45%, including Jonathan Adler and Arteriors. The fee per room ranges from $445 to $1,399, depending on your designer’s experience. I tried the $699 Silver package.

I took a brief visual style quiz, listed brands I gravitated toward and wrote a description of my hopes: “a little more dazzle and a more modern, less granny, bedroom.” For the next step, clients have the options of a phone or video chat, an in-home consultation or a detailed online questionnaire—my choice.

Five days later, Decorilla sent proposals by two designers. Each 2D mood board featured a color palette, wall-art and furniture ideas and a floor plan. The schemes felt layered and unique.

Using Decorilla’s online chat feature, I worked with Michelle B. to tweak her design, which included an Inspire Q. metal canopy bed in champagne gold from Overstock.com. I asked her to remove a busy palm-frond wallpaper feature behind the headboard and match my current wall color. When I fretted that the metal-frame stools she’d chosen might stub toes, she subbed in faux-fur cubes.

Michelle made the changes offline and soon emailed photo-realistic 3-D imagery, a 360-degree view and a shopping list with prices.

For $99 extra, Decorilla sent me a link and a plastic VR headset in which to tuck my smartphone, no iOS11 needed. In no time, I was “in” my room. More like VR Lite, since it’s not interactive, the 360-degree image had even more depth in this view. I decided to replace the gold-metal bed frame, now clearly too brassy, with subtler wood or nickel.

All these tools give you confidence to buy, which explains their growing popularity among retailers. I was truly stuck when envisioning my bedroom’s potential, and now I see that a canopy bed would not only fit but create a chic focal point. I’ll still, however, test that calming gray paint before I pull the trigger.

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