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Well the white planes are the ceiling below and the gap between this whit surface and bottom of 2nd walls is where Floor structure would be placed. Joists and plywood or such. You may have them turned off. Also you may be looking at this in 3d while on the 1st floor. See what level you are at.

Thank you for the quick reply and pointing me in the right direction. I'll learn how to do that and give it a try. I appreciate your help. Thanks!

Use a terrain hole around the foundation wall around the stairs

Hi, I'm brand new and assume I am missing something obvious :). Thank you in advance for any help. I am using Home Designer 2026, Build 27.3.2.5 for MAC ARM, Dec 10, 2025 On floor 1: I created a porch room external to the main house. It has a foundation, invisible walls and now roof/ceiling. On floor 0: I created stairs going from level 0 to level 1. This worked fine and you can see them in the attachment. I added landing at the bottom and top of the stairs. They match the door and the present landing. I then used the auto create stairwell between the two floors. Everything appears to work fine except the terrain is overdrawing on floor 1. When you look up from the bottom of the stairs you can confirm the stairwell is open. I tired changing the terrain, but this did not help. One attempt flattened all the stairs and I started over. The terrain is -2" below floor 1 which says it is at "0". Screen shots are attached. Again, any help is appreciated and thank you in advance for your time.

The pictures do nothing. Try posting your plan and maybe someone will look at it.

Yes, neither no locate or no room definition are checked. Here are two more pics. The first shows the gap when second floor doesn't extend over the first. The second pic shows the front which looks fine.

Wall Specification>General>Options It also looks like your walls are not aligned with the walls below? Spend some time with the reference manual

I'm not sure where "no room definition" would be. But here is another example. I just drew four exterior walls for my second floor as show below. And all second floor walls show the siding hanging below the wall as shown in the second picture. The third picture shows a gap between the first floor wall and the second floor. Thanks for your help!

Looks like the room is not defined? Make sure all of the perimeter walls are not marked as "no room definition" and "no locate"

I am using Home Designer Pro 2024. The picture below shows my second floor walls. They do not come all the way down to the floor. The siding extends beyond the bottom of the wall (see the second picture). I have checked "stop at floor below" What else can I do to get my walls to sit flush against the floor?

using home designer pro 2022. added a 2nd floor bonus room and the square footage doesn't increase the living area total. I've made sure the "include in living area" is checked

I run 2 computers side by side...one with Win11 and all the new software I use, like HD. Then I have my old reliable Win7 work machine that runs certain critical software that won't run on the newer OS' like my AutoCAD. I've been working this way since about 2013. Not the solution you were after I'm sure but it does work well for these sorts of issues.

Ya, I seen that about 2026. I wish I would have been paying more attention and got 2025 before it went away. The 2016 does everything I need it to do. But I need to update to Windows 11 and am not sure what it is going to do to 2016. I just would hate to loose all my models because I update to Windows 11. Idealy 2016 will keep working and I can continue on as normal. Thank You!

Not sure but probably one where you have to play with things to find the culprit. My guess is they are made on the first floor level not the foundation or level 0.. And I am not sire if that can be fixed...

That sounds like an interesting way to do it. I haven't messed around much with railings other than putting them around an outside wood deck. The three posts are supporting a low slope modified bit roof with dimensional lumber rafters, and T&G ceiling. I think it probably needs the pad footings. This is also to be installed at an existing pool deck, so the pool deck will have to be cut out, excavated, and pour footings/piers. I can always draw the three pad footings on the foundation plan after it is sent to Layout. Just curious why it wouldn't place them automatically.

Did you try making those cuppola as a DORMER?

Can I make suggestion. Since that is just holding up a pretty much flat roof probably an Aluminum cover type there is not much loading on those posts that they require a full footing. You could get by with just the normal 4" slab and aluminum posts bolting to it. If this is supporting the house hip roof then I would change the row of posts into a RAILING WALL with Posts to BEAM and railing set to OPEN so it does not have railings. Choose your posts design, size and spacing. this then creates an outdoor room you can change to PATIO and lower as required and have house roof cover it. It will treat this railing wall as part of the house and then creates proper foundation, and you can have a footer under the entire length if you choose.

Remember 2026 version is subscription based which means yo have to pay every month or year to work on drawings. if you stop paying the program stops working. But yes newer versions can open older version files. Newer versions CANNOT save as older versions so everything a new version opens becomes a new version file.

I currently have Home Designer Pro 2016. (I know I need to upgrade anyway. But I really don't use it as much as I used to, but is sure is nice to have when I want it.) I have a couple questions: 1- I need to upgrade to windows 11, Has anyone done this with an older version like 2016? Will it still work? I am afraid if it doesn't work I am going to be in a bind. 2- IF I upgrade to 2026 can I still open my old 2016 model/drawings? (Like AutoCAD will) Thanks, Chris

I think I searched existing topics pretty well, but only found where it was suggested to turn on "Post, Footings" in the Display Options. I already had that checked. I've got three patio roof posts each with a square concrete pad footing. They show everywhere except on the Foundation Plan. After I took these screen shots, I carried one of the posts down to the top of the buried footing, even though that is not how I would build it, but that won't make it display either. Am I missing something overly simple??

I'm dredging up some history because I found this very useful, yet it falls just short of my needs. In my project the ceilings above the main room are vaulted, and the method shown above doesn't quite work for that... I unchecked the "Flat Ceiling Over This Room" option in the structure for the intermediate floor (clerestory). Is there a work-around for this? I never got it to work, so I modeled the cupola structure as a separate file, exported to DAE and then imported it into my main project. This is pretty cumbersome, and you have to create roof openings at the ridge, and that leaves an artifact. Here's what I ended up doing for my project... - Interior and exterior showing vaulted ceiling and the artifact left between the roof openings at the ridge Cupola model I created using Home Designer: Anyway... my work-around was very fiddly especially when aligning the interior walls where the cupola model was meeting the roof opening walls. To complicate things further, the other structure on the project has two residential wings that are set at 45-degrees... the software really struggles with roof openings through vaulted ceilings unless the structure is set orthagonally. Dave

floor plan? Ceiling height in those rooms that gable side walls include should have done what you want.

Hello I am looking for a way to raise up the center wall and gable to make the center gable have a little different from the two side gables. Just looking to make the front wall under that gable about 2' taller. I have tried raising the ceiling heights in the room under this gable but that did not resolve the issue. I also tried manually adjusting this gable but that didn't seem to work either. Home Designer Pro 2024 Thanks in advance.

one is not drawn to proper size. my guess is your PLAT info is incorrect. So how did you upload? Better to draw so you can set it as terrain boundary

I have uploaded my plat and imported it to the layout. I sent it to the back, but I can't figure out how to resize the layout to fit the plat size. Can someone please help. Thanks-DJ