I just wanted a new couch, but AI gave my living room a Versailles makeover

A good sofa can change your life, a bad sofa can break your spine and finding the right style for your lifestyle can leave you feeling stuck making good choices if you don’t know what you’re doing.

When I started to experience neck pain after long gaming sessions on my 5-year-old Ikea couch, which, admittedly, had been moved too often to be stable, I knew it was time to at least change the seating at home.

This is how I used the artificial intelligence tool Gepetto to turn my search for a new sofa into an aesthetic overhaul of my mismatched living room and how you can use AI to reimagine your living space too.

The AI ​​tool: Gepetto

Gepetto was developed primarily for real estate professionals who want to furnish houses and apartments for online advertising cheaply, without having to actually rent furniture.

It’s a kind of AI tool that converts text to images. Instead of writing a command that generates an image, you’re asked to upload a photo of the room you want to redesign or decorate. You can then select different interior styles to apply from a drop-down menu.

You can change things like the colors of the walls and give the tool more or less creative freedom in the results via the workspace in the browser.

Looking for a complete renovation that would include a more comfortable, better made sofa, I had Gepetto redecorate my entire living room into a more cohesive whole, replacing the current hodgepodge of styles that I have been putting together piece by piece over the years.

Using the in-browser tool is simple:

1. Go to the Gepetto AI site and click on Get startedCreate a login with your Apple, Google, or Microsoft account.
2. Take a photo of the room you want to redecorate.
3. Upload the photo to Gepetto.
4. Tell Gepetto which room in the house it is — you can choose from bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, home office, dining room, balcony, garden and other spaces. There are also options for professional spaces, such as a clothing store, bar and coworking space.
5. Select which interior styles you would like to apply to the image. Some options include Provence, Normandie, Moderne, Midcentury Retro, Bali, Classique, Colonial, Cyberpunk, Hampton, Miami, Minimal, Californien, Rococo, Scandinave and Pièce enfant (a styling system specifically for children’s rooms).
6. You can also select whether to repaint the walls and whether to keep the same type of furniture you already have, and then turn the creativity meter up or down before clicking To generate.
7. It takes about 15 seconds to generate an image for you, then you can scroll through the results and select your favorites.

The Living Room Makeover, Versailles Edition

The results can be really fun, like when you go for something a little more chic-schmancy. The reimagined room below looks like it could be a corner of Versailles:

There is also an option to keep everything in the room the same and simply swap or add furniture. This can be useful for people who are moving to a new house or apartment and are starting with empty spaces.

Gepetto is free to use for the first seven times, after which you have to pay just over $43 per month for unlimited use and image upscaling. I tried seven different styles, resulting in a mix of tastefully decorated rooms and flashy living spaces that would make a Russian oligarch feel right at home.

Amid the miles of jute floors, the ornate ceiling frescoes, the curtains that seemed to melt off the windows, and the probably unachievable, expensive changes to the flooring, I did find one helpful suggestion (just ignore the two wide-brimmed sun hats that the AI ​​tool decided would make for top-notch wall art).

Buy the AI ​​look online

At the end of the process you can press the button shop on the right side of the browser window and browse through the Google Image search results for websites where you can find similar furniture and decor to the generated room.

The top results weren’t the most useful. Real estate sites like Zillow and Apartments.com or short-term rental sites like Airbnb and Vrbo were at the top, but if you scrolled down a bit, you’d see retailers like Etsy selling items similar to the decor and furniture Gepetto had created.

I Googled the image I liked best, outside of Gepetto, and got some great options for furniture from reputable online retailers, such as West Elm, Amazon, Soul & Lane, Etsy, Article, and of course, Pinterest.

Now all I need to do is find a new bank that won’t be too taxing on my spine or bank account.

If you’re looking for other visual ways to use AI, read about how to use Midjourney to design cheap, custom wedding invitations and how to use AI to design your own business logo . For more AI news, tips and reviews, check out CNET’s AI Atlas hub.