With all the chatter about AI and the speculation and predictions about its impact on jobs, industries, professions or frankly the world in general, I got curious. Although probably late to the party, I recently started to pay attention to what was being said about Chat Gpt, Claude, Canva AI and Gemini to name a few AI tools.

I watched some YouTube information sessions about Claude and Gemini and thought I would start by putting the free version of Gemini to the test. Even though I used Gemini for some basic tasks, I was blown away by the results.

Task 1

I have been wanting to undertake some home improvements/renovations for some time now, so it hit me that I should enlist Gemini as my interior designer in this experiment and see if the results were good enough to be used.

Informal living room – new built in cabinet & sofa refresh

I started by giving Gemini a brief of what decor style and aesthetic I wanted, what colors to incorporate and how I wanted to feel in the space. The following is a pictorial representation of how this back and forth unfolded for the built in cabinet and the sofa refresh with the eventual result I decided I could use.

The Built In TV & Storage Cabinet

The now

I asked Gemini to give me inspiration for a built in for the TV wall. The prompts included the Hamptons decor style, coastal accents, plants, a calm space that has strip lighting on the shelves where I could also display books and other treasured items. To my absolute surprise, after a couple of prompts, Gemini gave me the following inspiration.

Inspo 2

I then refined my prompts further to request strip lighting for the shelving and to take the shelves all the way up to the ceiling. I decided that the following design inspiration could be used in a brief to a cabinet maker in the future should I decide to proceed.

Inspo 2 😍

I was particularly impressed with how my current decor was incorporated into the design – the plants, books, coffee table & styling and wall prints.

Sofa refresh

I then asked Gemini to help me refresh my sofa. The following is the now & what it could look like.

The now

The possible

The Gemini generated sofa refresh inspiration that I settled in after a few backs and forths 😍:

The dining room

I love my dining room table but have been longing to update the chairs to more comfortable tub chairs. This time round, I had to provide a series of prompts before I arrived at inspiration, I was happy with.

Not sure what Gemini was thinking when I asked for fabric pendant lighting as the ones in the picture above look like potato sacks 🥴😂

After some failed attempts to describe the light I wanted over the dining table, I had to upload a photo of it for Gemini to incorporate it into the design.

Whilst the below still needs work, it’s a photo that helps me visualize how my design ideas would actually look in the space after some more tweaks.

I then moved onto tasking Gemini with giving me design inspo for a tea/coffee/beverage station. The results after some back and forth was impressive.

The tea, coffee & beverage bar

The now

Inspo 1

Inspo 2

I settled on the following design as a starting point for a future discussion to have these cabinets designed, built and installed 😍:

I have to say that although quite elementary, this experiment outcome was surprisingly good & in summation, I regard this tool as one I will certainly be using in future home interior design projects.

Well this was fun, Now that my appetite for AI has been wetted, I am thinking of doing something with Claude in part 2…stay tuned!