SketchUp Courses for Interior Designers: How to Choose the Right One

How on earth do you find the right SketchUp course for you?

The internet is swamped with all sorts of people and organisations offering courses in this area. So how do you sift through the noise and find one that’s actually useful, one that suits your interior design goals, your budget, and your timeline?

Let me help.

A great starting point is to find a course that matches the industry you're in. For example, if you’re in interior design, then you’ll want a SketchUp course tailored for interior designers, not one aimed at architects, furniture makers, or general 3D modeling.

That sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people end up in courses that are not specific to the way we, as interior designers, need to use the software.

One of the most important things to consider is: 

Who is teaching the course?
Are they an expert in their field? 

Are they a practicing interior designer?

Learning SketchUp from a practicing designer gives you insights and workflows that are directly applicable to real projects. A good course will not just teach you how to push buttons it will teach you how to design like an interior designer using SketchUp.

There’s nothing more frustrating than finishing a course feeling confident, only to realise you can’t actually present your work to clients or trades, and you still have no idea how to do an electrical or lighting plan. 

You need a course that takes you from floor plan creation right through to creating a finished design presentation without needing to buy multiple courses to fill the gaps. 

At a basic level, a SketchUp course should:

• Teach you the fundamental tools to create an interior design
• Show how to use them step-by-step
• Give you resources to refer back to when you need a refresher
   

But that’s just the beginning. A SketchUp course for interior design should cover far more:

• How to work with architectural drawings.
   
• Creating floor plans from scratch.
   
• Annotating floor plans with dimensions and labels and being able to toggle those on/off.
   
• Turning your floorplan into a 3D model.
   
• Importing and scaling textures and materials.
   
• Matching paint colours to real brands.
   
• Creating furniture and fixtures from spec sheets.
   
• Organising your model using tags (e.g. Hide/show furniture to focus on tiling/layout)
   
• Geolocating your model to understand light and environment (e.g., will you be blinded by the sun while cleaning the dishes?)
   
• Designing to industry standards (e.g., clearances, fixture spacing — crucial for bathrooms!)
   
• Adding joinery details like skirting, architraves, and coving.
   
• Creating a lighting plan with the correct lumens for each space.
   
• Considering heating and structural needs.
   
• Producing elevations and construction-ready views.
   
• Importing real artwork as decorative images

• Creating a walkthrough animation of your space (yes, a 3D video!) To see exactly how interior designers use SketchUp here.

SketchUp is a powerful tool but it really shouldn’t feel like climbing a mountain to learn. With the right training (and the right teacher), you’ll see that it’s a straightforward, practical, and enjoyable tool for interior designers.