Maintaining the preferred look and upkeep level of your home requires constant attention, but these iPhone apps can help you stay on top of your household needs.
Searching for a new look for any room of your home? Dream Home can help. The app offers a series of stylish photos sorted by room or space, including the living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, kids’ rooms, and hallways. You can also sort by color or style to find a variety of options in your preferred aesthetic, and the app is regularly updated with new photos, including those uploaded by other users. As of press time, the app still hasn’t been updated to take advantage of the iPhone 4 Retina Display, but the well-framed photos still impress, displaying a diverse variety of décor options that should set your mind ablaze with design ideas.
Dream Home 1.3
Apalon
apalon.com
$1.99
Spring is finally here again, and while that may mean the onset of allergies for some, others see it as an opportunity to once more exercise their green thumbs. Gardening Toolkit is a swell companion app for gardeners of all levels, as the app lets you search for and track all your plants, and even maintain records of 12 different gardens. Each plant listing comes complete with traditional sowing and blooming times, the amount of ideal sun and water needed for a flourishing garden, and a wealth of other details about typical growth patterns. Additionally, Gardening Toolkit contains month-by-month growing advice and the ability to concoct a to-do list within the app.
Gardening Toolkit 2.1.1
Applied Objects
appliedobjects.com
$3.99
Keeping track of all the little repairs needed around the house can be exhausting, but the Home Maintenance app makes it a little easier by tracking everything in one location. Similar to the Car Minder Plus and Motorcycle Minder apps featured in the Garage section, Home Maintenance lets you add various household tasks—such as inspecting the foundation or having the septic system pumped—and track the most recent service, with suggestions of when the next service should be performed. Firing up this app every so often and loading it with your most recent repairs should help you maintain a well-functioning household.
Home Maintenance 1.2
POJO Software
pojosoft.com
$2.99
Owning a house is serious business, and just as you wrap up one home improvement project, it may seem as if another need emerges like clockwork. Luckily, the ServiceMagic Home Improvement app offers a free resource for locating nearby technicians (“screened and approved by ServiceMagic”), with a wide array of projects—such as air conditioning, electrical, and cabinet needs—included in the app. Not only can you browse through the pre-screened professionals, read user reviews, and bookmark repair companies for later consideration, but the app also includes loads of articles about do-it-yourself tasks and ways to stay more organized around the home.
ServiceMagic Home Improvement 1.0
ServiceMagic
servicemagic.com
Free
If you’ve outgrown your home or simply need a fresh setting for your daily adventures, the iPhone hosts several worthwhile real estate apps that provide detailed nearby listings and even estimates so you can figure out what your current place is worth. Zillow Real Estate Search is a free, high-quality option that works on both iPhone and iPad, with the app offering listings by location, high-quality photos, contact information, and even a “Zestimate” that supplies a realistic view of what the property is actually worth at this point, based on the movement of similarly equipped dwellings in the same area.
ZipRealty is another attractive and helpful free app, which conveniently shows currently listed and recently sold homes around your area or any zip code, with just a tap needed to open up the listing and view detailed information about the home and its surroundings. ZipRealty also includes an oddly amusing feature wherein the compass functionality of the iPhone is used to point the phone toward nearby houses for sale, creating a weird scavenger hunt of sorts. Hey, who said buying a new house can’t be fun?
