Show HN: HomeCat – Design your backyard office

dearilos 35 points 16 comments September 07, 2026
myhomecat.com · View on Hacker News

Hey HN! Ilya and Nikita here. We’re building HomeCat, a tool that lets you design a backyard office space - https://myhomecat.com We started out by helping people design sheds, and quickly realized that many people actually want to build a backyard office. There wasn't really an easy way to do this, so we thought we'd take on the challenge. Right now, you can design a backyard shed and our tool will make it code compliant. It's maybe 90% of the way there, since you also have zoning/HOA and other edge cases. But it does figure out most of the details for you. Right now, it's pretty simple: enter your address, what you want to build (i.e. 8x8 backyard office), and it'll create a few concepts for you. If you like one, you can customize it with the chat. Here's an example of a design that's compliant in SF: https://myhomecat.com/scene/classic-cottage-137134ef We would love for you to try our tool if you are planning your backyard office. As a bonus to the HN community, we can professionally design one for you for free if you comment what you're looking for. Happy labor day!

Discussion Highlights (5 comments)

richstokes

Doesn’t load.

dearilos

We just got the hug of death. Fixing it - sorry about that! You can clone this scene and start designing from it for now https://myhomecat.com/scene/classic-cottage-137134ef Edit: back up and working now!

foopod

Americentrism? Code compliant where? I tried my place in New Zealand, but the address isn't recognized. I couldn't find anywhere on the site what countries/regions are accepted.

hedgehog

There's something funky with the renderer, it looks like perspective is wrong. All vibe coded?

toyg

Hijacking a bit, sorry: I already built the space, but I just filled it with old, mismatched, clunky furniture. Is there some sort of designer site where I could play with furniture, apart from Ikea?

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