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I think your first sentence captured the issue: "for the sake of the software". The software wants an enclosed space to be a "room", but users don't necessarily want such a direct mapping. This is demonstrated by the existence "Room divider" feature that allows users to take a single space and divide it into many rooms. This is common in open floor plans. Using your logic, an open kitchen, dining, living area is one "room". Architects and residents who look at function, use and layout would likely say that the space has three "rooms" while engineers/builders who look at how it's built might look at it as one. So, in the same way that one space might be several rooms (see above), I'd like to say that several spaces are one room (sleeping area + closet = bedroom). One possible implementation would be to have a door option that marks it as "No room definition" -- it does not participate in room definition. A less direct way was suggested in prior comments where walls are marked as "No room definition" (again an example of the need for separate spaces to not necessarily be separate rooms). Either way, the user has the freedom to define which spaces constitute "rooms" however they want. My user goals here are: all spaces part of some room that makes sense from a user point of view all floor plan area is accounted for in the appropriate room the value of area label for a room reflects the total area of all related spaces In short, a bedroom composed of a 100sqft sleeping area and a 20sqft closet should show as "Bedroom 120sqft". In any event, @Rookie65 pointed me in a direction that works (thanks!). If any Home Designer staff are looking at this, please consider a "No room definition" option for doors (and windows for that matter).

If you are asking about the manual dormer...search the knowledge base for manual WALL dormer.

You make it look so easy! lol It just keeps telling me that the dormer can't find the back wall to attach itself to. Im afraid you will need to be a little more specific on how you got to do what you did. I know its possible, I just can't get there for some reason. What you did is exactly what I wanted to do. Thanks!

all enclosed spaces are defined as rooms for sake of software. Not sure really what you are looking for. You can open up room definition box and turn off label and it will not be named nor show dims/area. And yes a closet is not a bedroom.... in architectural terms. they are 2 distinct rooms, just as your stairwell is if each end seals off with doors.

Outside image, Dormer on the right is an "auto" dormer. Dormer on the left is the "manual" dormer. Inside the room, dormer on the right is the "manual" dormer, dormer on the left is the "auto" dormer. Both dormers require pitch and ceiling height settings to be adjusted, to make them work.

Cool idea. That worked as-is for one of the situations but for the others, the wall with the door-to-be-ignored also helps define other rooms. For those I had to use the context menu on the wall and "Add break" (or two) at appropriate places. Magic. Thanks

Try changing the walls the doors are in to "no room definition".

How can connect too "spaces" that have a door and have it be one "room"? A prime (though not only) example of this is a bedroom with a closet. The closet has a door which makes Home Designer think it's a different room. Several problems: 1) I don't particularly want to label the closet and 2) I do want the closet space to count in the room's area. There are other examples where a stair well/foyer has a closable door for sound mitigation but really it is one space. Again, we want one label and one area calculation. It would be great if there was an option on doors to say "Don't divide spaces". Sort of the anti-room divider.

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Hey everyone, Hoping that someone can help me out and be a hero today! Designing a tiny modular home that will be 1 story since it has to travel down the road on a trailer. It's 12' wide and has a classic 5/12 pitch A frame. All of the ceilings are cathedral to add height to the interior. To add more light and a feeling that its larger I want to add 2 or 3 "shed" dormers over the living area and the bedroom coming off the peak of the A Frame. Since this is such a small space the "auto dormer" looses its mind since there isn't enough space for its defaults. Ive exhausted all the how to videos and still now help. Anyone out there got a method to get this drawn in? As you can see the exterior just looks average, but by adding a shed dormer I can add some windows higher up to add in some more light and height. Due to regulations I can not just do a single slope roof which would be my preference. It's got to be no less than a 5/12 pitch. Government oversight at its best!

A wall likely auto-rebuilt. Copy the window location, then check the walls to see if one or more says "Polyline produced by 3D wall editor." Delete it, and If you go too far, the wall you need will disappear. Then just just back up a step to put it back. Then you should be able to place the window you copied back. Sometimes the walls could be misaligned too. Without a plan to look at, it's just guesswork at this point

My first major glitch...anyone have an idea why the exterior siding shows in this one window in the attached image?

Have you guys considered licensing the 2026 and beyond versions for casual users? I've subscribed to Home Designer Pro for years and have upgraded each year because I love to draw home design plans - not for commercial reasons but for my own enjoyment. Maybe consider a licensed limited use 2026+ version for us casual users ?

Shown is the small gap created and this occurs on every rafter. The end wall top plates matched the pitch, but I just wanted a birdmouth to sit flush on the sill plates and automatically lower those top plates. Is there a way to get this to work right?

I'm building a single pitch shed-style (lean-to) roof and Home Designer does not correctly seat the rafter on top of the high wall with a birdsmouth. The low end is correctly shown, but the high end just shows the full rafter without any cut or adjustment to sit on the top plate- it only sits on the corner.

One thing that is surprising me is that there don't seem to be any people posting about how to do things in HD 2026. Usually people would have questions on how to make something work, different features, etc. Yet I haven't seen any and it makes me wonder if people are bucking this "forced upon us" subscription for HD 2026, which is a big letdown from what HD Pro 2025 offered. Or are people making the expensive switch to the Premiere version? I don't know what the next option will be in HD, yet I hope it's made worthwhile, and resets the multitude of idiotic changes made from 2025 to 2026. Time will tell, I guess.

In what way is '25 crippled? I'm only on 2021... just curious though. Thanks.

@Renerabbit: If I may ask, where did you see this discount? Was it for renewals or only for new subscribers? Assuming it was a "Black Friday" special, what is your best guess as to whether this will be made available in the future? If so, then the lowest cost to subscribe would be to wait until November/December, and then renew every subsequent year when "Black Friday" rolls around. I can't afford to wait that long, I need to upgrade from the too-crippled HD Arch '25 version, but I also want to minimize the annual cost. As usual, the little guy (DIY'er) gets the short end of the stick.

I am very disappointed. I started with Home Designer Deluxe in 2006 and upgraded only once since then. I'm not a rich man so I had been saving up to upgrade again. I'm just a hobbyist who likes to play with the software as a creative outlet. After saving, and getting a new PC that could handle the newer software, I decided tonight to go look at Home Designer to prepare to pull the trigger. And what do I see? Its now an annual subscription of $495. Wow. Just wow. I understand the need for a revenue stream but I cant do that. So i can here just to add my voice and hope that perhaps they will reconsider this ill advised move. From what I am reading, I'm not the only one who will not bite on that hook.

Hell @Rune1961, While this system will certainly run HD 2026 I would recommend instead looking for a system that has a "Gaming" graphics card. The Nvidia RTX A5000 is considered a "Workstation" graphics card, and while it will run the program it is typically going to be more expensive and will not perform as well as a gaming graphics card, within our program. The Nvidia Gaming graphics cards will start with "GeForce", such as "Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070". Here is our system requirements page, which will go over our recommended system: https://www.homedesignersoftware.com/products/system-requirements.html Additionally, here is a blog post we've written about shopping for a computer for Chief Architect/Home Designer: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/blog/computer-for-design-and-gaming/ If you'd like to go into this further I would recommend reaching out to our technical support team through the technical support center. While we can't recommend specific systems we can go over the options you've picked out and help decide what would be the best for our program. Using the Technical Support Center: https://www.chiefarchitect.com/support/article/KB-00717/using-the-technical-support-center.html I hope this helps!

I got into Home Designer last year as I've been doing a lot more serious DIY work around the house and been getting more value out of the tool. The thing is, I'm not a professional. I can't justify what they're charging for the full suite. What is ultimately going to happen is they are going to lose this growing market of DIYers that have no onramp into their products. Maybe they don't care about that market, and that's fine. But there's no way to really learn their products now. Compare that to Autodesk Fusion where they have a nice free tier for hobbyists and students to learn. They know they make their money from businesses, and keeping the bottom of the market happy helps build a pipeline for people learning CAD tools and taking it to future jobs. I think this is a very shortsighted decision from the Chief Architect folks.

You just lost a customer. I don't use it nearly enough to pay $500 per year. I am assuming you will likely offer the DIY version for a couple of more years, then stop developing it. I am in the software business and any real perfessional would be using the Architect version and doesn't have an issue with a subscription. I used it to design my two houses I am building. Any chance to buy the 2025 version?

Hi there folks! Need some second opinion on buying a (fairly) hei new laptop, a couple of years old. Serviced and comes with guarantee, mint condition. Just upgraded to HD Pro 2026 and need more speed! As I understand, this should do the job! Any comments or experiences would be very velcome, thanks! See link for details. https://www.chg-meridianshop.no/shop/dell-precision-7560-i9-11950h/

Thanks, I will give that a try

Depending on what you have, and what you want it to look like... A soffit or box shape might be easier to manipulate.