WESTBOROUGH, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 09/04/07 -- For most of us, putting a house together -- even a single room -- is a confusing process. Where to begin? What to do next? How can you tell what you really like?

You can slog through millions of styles and products online -- exhausting! What you can't do is see how they'd look mixed together in your room. But what if you could?

Check out a remarkable new website: DesignMyRoom.com. For the very first time, you can sit down at your computer, go to a single site, and create a room -- your room -- from scratch. Not a floor plan. A real room that shows you how your room will actually look.

You can move appliances, fixtures, countertops, furniture, rugs, lamps and accessories in and out of the picture. You can put in floor coverings and window treatments. You can paint and re-paint the walls. You can change your choices. Try out bold new ideas. Then, you can save your room. You can share your room. And you can do it all with no special training and no special software. You can find your look for free -- and have fun doing it!

The Sponsoring Companies

DesignMyRoom.com features cutting-edge technology that lets visitors create a room using premier products from some of America's most trusted brands, including Armstrong, Benjamin Moore, Kohler, Smith + Noble and Whirlpool. There is also access to thousands of other home furnishings products and accessories. The whole idea is to pull it all together in one room setting, play with it, change it around, save it, and share it with the people in your life.

The Designers

The site is hosted by the delightful and multi-talented designer, Robert Verdi, known to fans nationwide as the TV host of "Surprise By Design." Verdi, who dresses Hollywood celebrities as well as their rooms, guides you through the site so you can discover your own style.

There is also inspiration, advice and great ideas from some of America's hottest interior designers, including Eric Cohler, Rebecca Cole, Ernest de la Torre, Harry Heissmann of Albert Hadley, Inc., Laura Kirar of Tru Design, Amy Lau, Bella Zakarian Mancini of Ruby, and Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz. They're all top design professionals with star-studded lists of private clients. For DesignMyRoom.com, they've provided fabulous rooms filled with ideas you can steal -- the site's "Lift This Look" tool lets you help yourself. Their designs and advice will appear frequently. Some will provide fresh insights on designer blogs and feedback on room projects. You can even enter your own room in a contest to win a free room makeover from Robert Verdi.

The Rooms

DesignMyRoom.com provides photos of empty rooms, including living rooms, bedrooms, dining rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, kids rooms, laundry rooms, dens, garages and basements. To try out different looks and products, you use computer moves you already know -- dragging and dropping, searching and scrolling. Most home product websites only let you change one thing at a time on one site at a time. On DesignMyRoom.com, you can try them all out in one place.

Another great feature: You can also upload a photo of your own empty room to the site, and within 24 hours it will be up and ready for you to start using on the site for your own project.

Free and Practically Free

To save your project, you register and become a basic member for free. Then you can experience everything the site offers, and you can keep one project up to work on whenever you like. If you upload your own photo, DesignMyRoom.com will adapt it within 24 hours for a fee of $25.00. Becoming a Plus Member of the site entitles you to work on up to five projects at a time for only $4.95 per month. Becoming a Premium Member gives you up to 25 projects on the site for only $9.95 per month.

The Community

DesignMyRoom.com is also a design community, where people can help each other re-make their spaces. You can keep your project private or share it with others. (It's a great way to work with family members or friends who are far away.) You can ask other people for comments, or ratings (two stars, five stars, no stars!) or even a re-design.

"When my wife and I renovated three years ago, we had to sign out samples from retailers and lug them around -- a heavy piece of granite, a cabinet door, ceramic tiles, carpet swatches, paint chips. They must have weighed 50 pounds," said Jesse Engle, VP, Business & Product Development at Swatchbox Technologies of Westborough, MA, creators of DesignMyRoom.com. "Next time, we do it all on the site."

Engle notes that the rooms are not to scale. "It's more like a collage. You see how the elements you've chosen work with each other in your room. Eventually, you need to measure to be sure everything fits. But by then you've found your look, and you can buy what you love with confidence."

"Many people have been turned on by that TV show where an architect seems to re-create whole sections of a house in moments on a laptop," he said. "But that requires training and special software costing hundreds of dollars. We're offering the same excitement -- discovering your look online -- for free. No special software, no training, no hassle. And the process is really fun!"

For more information, visit www.DesignMyRoom.com, which makes its debut on August 30th.

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Contact:
Bobbi Schlesinger
Email Contact
973-226-6097

Jessica Cannistraro
Email Contact
508-871-0929 x16

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