Penny Andrews
Doesn't IKEA already do this?
Last updated: September 9, 2026
We got that a lot when we started Reno. Or swap in DIY Kitchens, or Victorian Plumbing, same question. The honest answer is yes, but no, but...
What retailer planners do well
Yes, IKEA's room planners are great: create your room shape, populate it with the products you're considering buying from them, see how they fit. DIY Kitchens and Victorian Plumbing do much the same for their own ranges.
The “no but” our users articulated
It was our users who articulated the “no but” better than we ever could. One told us:
“I've already got an IKEA plan, but I'm doing the whole house and need something to cover the entire plan, not just a bit of it.”
That's the gap. Retailer planners are built to show their own products in a room, sometimes even in 3D or AR. Being able to place your product in 3D space solves a small problem. Helping someone plan their entire home is the big one, and retailers don't seem to be building for it.
So people end up having to make a second, separate plan anyway, even when they're just doing that one room.
What a real plan needs
Once you dig into what a real plan needs, it's obvious why:
- Choosing between all tiles or all one colour for a whole wall doesn't capture how you actually want it finished
- Electrical and plumbing points are not considered
- There's no way to show what's changing from the current layout - do you have to move the soil pipe, is anything structural changing, are the water and electrical points moving too
- Everything's treated as a shopping list from one shop, whereas in real life there's a mix - new purchases, things you already own, the odd vintage find from somewhere else entirely
Floors, taps, sockets, lighting, worktops - they all come from different shops in practice, unless you're doing an all-IKEA, Airbnb-style project. So pretty narrow.
The gap that matters
Which is really the gap I think matters: a plan that holds the whole job together - structural changes, layout, every room, every trade, everything you need to buy regardless of who you're buying from, not just whatever one retailer happens to sell. That's what we've built Reno around from day one.
A great tool for one room, and nothing for the whole project surrounding it - that's the wall most people planning a renovation eventually hit.
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