Glossary

The words a renovation uses

Definitions for the 46 terms that come up while deciding what to change in a room — from accent wall and LRV to virtual staging — together with Interify's own: credits, versions, marked areas, Refine.

Try it free

Every term, A to Z

A

Accent wall: An accent wall is a single wall finished differently from the others in the room, usually in a stronger color or with wallpaper or paneling. It is often used to mark the wall a room is already organized around, such as the one behind a bed or a sofa.
See also: Focal point, Undertone, Paint sheenMore in Paint colors
Action type: The action type is the kind of change a note describes: change color, replace material, add item, remove item, restyle, or custom. Picking one tells the model how to read the note, so a color request isn't treated as a request for new furniture.
See also: Note, Marked areaMore in How to write notes for marked areas

B

Backsplash: A backsplash is the finished surface on the wall behind a counter, sink or stove, there to take splashes and be wiped down. It can be tile, stone, a slab matching the countertop, or a sheet material.
See also: Subway tile, Grout, Engineered quartzMore in Backsplash
Biophilic design: Biophilic design is an approach that connects interiors to the natural world through daylight, views, plants, water and natural materials. In a room it usually shows up as more daylight reaching further in, planting at several heights, and wood, stone or wool in place of synthetic finishes.
See also: Japandi, Layered lighting

C

Cabinet refacing: Refacing replaces cabinet doors and drawer fronts and covers the visible frames, while the cabinet boxes stay in place. It changes how a kitchen looks without moving plumbing, appliances or the layout.
See also: Shaker cabinetMore in A kitchen refresh without a remodel
Color temperature: Color temperature describes how warm or cool a light source looks, measured in kelvins (K). Around 2700K is warm and yellowish, about 4000K is neutral, and 5000K and above is cool and daylight-like; mixing temperatures in one room is what makes some photos look half-orange and half-blue.
See also: Layered lighting, Lumen, UndertoneMore in Lighting
Credit: A credit is Interify's unit of work: making a version of your room spends one. Credits don't expire, and a version that fails returns its credit automatically.
See also: Version, Try againMore in Pricing
Crown molding: Crown molding is trim fitted where the wall meets the ceiling, covering the joint and giving the top of the room a defined edge. Profiles range from a simple cove to deep built-up moldings in period rooms.
See also: Wainscoting, Scale and proportion

E

Engineered hardwood: Engineered hardwood is a real wood wear layer bonded to a plywood or fiberboard core. The core moves less with humidity than solid wood, so it can go over concrete and in more rooms, and it can be sanded only as many times as the wear layer allows.
See also: Luxury vinyl plank (LVP), Laminate flooring, Floating floorMore in Flooring
Engineered quartz: Engineered quartz is a countertop slab made of crushed quartz bound with resin and pigment. It is non-porous, so it needs no sealing and resists staining, and its pattern is consistent from slab to slab; direct heat from a pan can damage the resin.
See also: Granite, BacksplashMore in Countertops

F

Floating floor: A floating floor rests on the subfloor instead of being nailed or glued to it, with the boards locking to each other. It needs a gap at the walls so the floor can expand, which is what baseboards and quarter-round cover.
See also: Luxury vinyl plank (LVP), Laminate flooringMore in Visualizing new flooring in your room
Focal point: A focal point is the thing the eye lands on first when you enter a room: a fireplace, a window, a bed, a piece of art. Most arrangements read as deliberate because the furniture is organized around one, and unsettled when two compete.
See also: Accent wall, Scale and proportion, Layered lightingMore in Small living room changes to test in an afternoon

G

Granite: Granite is a natural stone countertop material cut into slabs, so each piece has its own veining and no two are alike. It takes heat well and is porous enough that most installers recommend periodic sealing.
See also: Engineered quartz, BacksplashMore in Countertops
Grout: Grout is the material filling the joints between tiles. Its color changes how a tiled surface reads more than people expect: grout close to the tile makes the surface look continuous, while a contrasting grout draws every tile edge.
See also: Subway tile, Backsplash

J

Japandi: Japandi is a widely used name for interiors that combine Japanese and Scandinavian ideas: light wood, low furniture, restrained palettes and few objects. It is a descriptive label rather than a historical style, and it has no fixed definition.
See also: Biophilic designMore in Japanese style

L

Laminate flooring: Laminate flooring is a fiberboard core topped with a photographic print of wood or tile and a hard wear layer. It is usually the cheapest plank floor and cannot be refinished: a damaged board is replaced, not sanded.
See also: Luxury vinyl plank (LVP), Engineered hardwoodMore in Flooring
Large-format tile: Large-format tile is tile with at least one edge fifteen inches or longer, the US industry definition, and includes the long planks and slab-sized panels used on floors and shower walls. Fewer joints make a surface look calmer, but the substrate has to be flatter than smaller tile requires.
See also: Subway tile, Grout
Layered lighting: Layered lighting means combining three kinds of light in one room: ambient light for general brightness, task light where people read, cook or work, and accent light for things worth looking at. Rooms lit by a single ceiling fixture usually read flat for this reason.
See also: Color temperature, Lumen, Focal pointMore in Lighting
LRV (light reflectance value): LRV is a 0 to 100 measure of how much visible light a paint color reflects, where 0 is absolute black and 100 is pure white. Paint manufacturers publish it for each color, and it is the most reliable way to compare how light or dark two colors will read in a room.
See also: Undertone, Color temperature, Paint sheenMore in Testing paint colors on your own walls
Lumen: A lumen is a unit of the total visible light a lamp puts out. Watts describe how much power a bulb draws, so lumens are the figure to compare when replacing one bulb with another.
See also: Color temperature, Layered lighting
Luxury vinyl plank (LVP): Luxury vinyl plank is a multi-layer vinyl floor shaped like boards, with a printed image of wood or stone under a clear wear layer. Most of it clicks together as a floating floor and handles water better than wood, which is why it turns up in kitchens, bathrooms and basements.
See also: Floating floor, Laminate flooring, Engineered hardwoodMore in Flooring

M

Marked area: A marked area is a part of your photo that you outline with the rectangle, lasso or marker tool to say what should change there. Each marked area carries its own note, and anything you leave unmarked is kept as it was — unless you also pick a style preset, which restyles the whole room.
See also: Note, Refine, VersionMore in How it works
Mood board: A mood board is a collected set of images, colors and material samples that shows the direction a room is going, assembled on a board, a wall or a screen. It settles arguments about words, because two people can agree on the word beige and mean different colors.
See also: Swatch, Reference photo

N

Note: A note is the short description attached to a marked area saying what that area should become, such as "white oak hardwood" or "deep navy blue". A note can be up to 1,000 characters, and it is what the model is told about that area, so the wording decides the result.
See also: Marked area, Action type, Reference photoMore in How to write notes for marked areas

O

Open plan: An open plan puts two or more functions, usually some combination of kitchen, dining and living, in one undivided space. Because walls are not doing it, the separation has to come from rugs, furniture placement, lighting and flooring changes.
See also: Scale and proportion, Focal pointMore in Living room

P

Paint sheen: Sheen is how much light a dried paint reflects, from flat and matte through eggshell and satin to semi-gloss and gloss. Higher sheens are easier to wipe clean and are common in kitchens and bathrooms; they also show dents, roller marks and uneven patching more than flat paint does.
See also: Primer, LRV (light reflectance value), Accent wallMore in Paint colors
Primer: Primer is a preparatory coat that seals a surface and gives the topcoat something to bond to. It is normally used on bare or patched walls, over stains, and when covering a much darker or much glossier color.
See also: Paint sheen

R

Reference photo: A reference photo is an image you attach to a marked area as an example of what you want there, such as a tile sample or a chair you have found. One version can send up to 5 reference photos, each tied to the area it belongs to.
See also: Marked area, Note, Mood board
Refine: Refine brushes over one part of a result so only that part is generated again, leaving the rest of the image as it is. It is the tool for fixing a single detail that came out wrong rather than redoing the whole room.
See also: Marked area, TweakMore in Features

S

Scale and proportion: Scale is how big something is relative to the room and the people in it; proportion is how the sizes of parts relate to each other and to the whole. A sofa that fits the floor area but towers over the window sill is a scale problem, not a style one.
See also: Focal point, Open planMore in Small living room changes to test in an afternoon
Shaker cabinet: A shaker cabinet has a five-piece door: four square-edged frame pieces around a flat recessed center panel. The plain profile is why it appears in farmhouse, transitional and contemporary kitchens alike.
See also: Cabinet refacingMore in Kitchen cabinets
Share link: A share link shows one version to anyone who opens it, with no account and no sign-in, as a before/after slider when the original is included. The owner chooses whether the original photo is shown and can stop sharing at any time, which makes the link stop working.
See also: Version, WatermarkMore in Showing a client a before/after
Shiplap: Shiplap is boarding whose edges are cut so each board overlaps the one below it, leaving a narrow even gap. Originally exterior sheathing, it is now used indoors as a wall finish and is closely associated with farmhouse interiors.
See also: Wainscoting, Accent wallMore in Farmhouse style
Style preset: A style preset is a saved description of an interior style that Interify applies to the whole room, with 20 to choose from. Each preset asks for particular materials, colors and lighting, and asks the model to keep the walls, windows, doors and camera angle where they are.
See also: Whole-room instruction, VersionMore in Interior design styles
Subway tile: Subway tile is a flat rectangular glazed tile, classically three by six inches, named after early twentieth-century station walls. It is usually laid in a running bond, with each row offset by half a tile, though stacked and herringbone layouts are common too.
See also: Backsplash, Grout, Large-format tileMore in Backsplash
Swatch: A swatch is a physical sample of a color or material: a paint chip, a peel-and-stick paint square, a painted test board, or an offcut of tile or flooring. Swatches are judged in the room they are meant for, at different times of day, because daylight and lamps change how a color reads.
See also: Undertone, LRV (light reflectance value), Mood boardMore in Testing paint colors on your own walls

T

Try again: Try again runs the same request a second time for a different result, leaving the version it came from untouched. The first Try again on each version is free; after that it spends a credit like any other version.
See also: Version, Tweak, CreditMore in Features
Tweak: Tweak changes the style or the instruction behind a result and runs it again, so you can keep the same marked areas and ask for something different. The version you tweaked stays in the history.
See also: Try again, Refine, Use as baseMore in Features

U

Undertone: An undertone is the faint secondary hue inside a near-neutral color, such as the pink, green, yellow or blue in a gray or white. Two grays with the same LRV can look unrelated side by side because their undertones differ.
See also: LRV (light reflectance value), Color temperature, SwatchMore in Testing paint colors on your own walls
Use as base: Use as base makes a result the starting point for the next change, so you can mark new areas on the room as it now looks. It is how several changes are stacked one after another instead of being asked for at once.
See also: Version, TweakMore in Features

V

Version: A version is one generated image of your room, made from your photo plus the areas you marked, the notes you wrote and any style you picked. Versions are numbered and kept in the project's history, so the original photo and earlier versions stay where they are.
See also: Credit, Marked area, Use as baseMore in How it works
Virtual renovation: Virtual renovation is digitally changing a room's finishes and fixtures in a photo, such as paint, flooring, cabinets or countertops, rather than its furniture. In a listing context both virtual staging and virtual renovation are edits to a photograph and should be disclosed as such, and many MLSs and some states require it.
See also: Virtual staging, VersionMore in Virtual staging vs virtual renovation
Virtual staging: Virtual staging is digitally adding furniture and decor to a photo of an empty or sparsely furnished room, usually for a property listing. The room's own surfaces are left as they are: the point is to show how the space could be used.
See also: Virtual renovation, Share linkMore in Virtual staging vs virtual renovation

W

Wainscoting: Wainscoting is paneling applied to the lower part of a wall, traditionally in wood, finishing at a rail somewhere between knee and chest height. It began as protection and insulation for the lower part of a wall, and is now mostly decorative.
See also: Crown molding, Shiplap, Accent wall
Watermark: A watermark is the small mark Interify places on result images for accounts that have never bought credits. Buying any credit pack removes it from downloads and from the images a share link shows.
See also: Credit, Share linkMore in Pricing
Whole-room instruction: A whole-room instruction is a sentence written in the editor's "Additional instructions" box that speaks to the photo as a whole rather than to one area, for example "keep the existing wooden floor" or "warm evening lighting". It applies to the whole photo on its own, or together with a style preset. Next to marked areas with no style it only shapes those areas, because the rest is kept from your photograph.
See also: Style preset, Marked areaMore in How it works

Read on

See the change, not the word

Mark what you want different in a photo of your own room. Signup includes 3 credits free, with no card.

Try it free Upload your room

Try it free