solver

You should generally turn on Auto Rebuild Foundation, and leave it on unless you need to make manual adjustments.

In the plan you posted, rebuild the foundation and see what happens.

11 minutes ago, elleinda-1 said:

my first question is what do I need to include in my post to give an accurate and detailed information to accompany my question?

Depends on the question.

You can start by correcting your signature. You have Home Designer X-2021, and there is no X-2021 product.

We assume you are using Home Designer, so, for example, Pro 2021 (or Suite 2021 etc) is all that's needed.

As for questions,

All Words = No Good

Pictures and a few well chosen words = Better
Pictures, a few well chosen words, and the plan file = Best

And please post images directly -- no need to make a PDF of an image. This makes it easier for others as an image shows in the forum.

Thanks for asking.

15 minutes ago, rforce said:

I have it set up that way in the framing selections

Unfortunately, there is no control over where the ridge builds. You will need to delete it and draw in your own, or move it down and manually extend the rafters. Group select and extend.

You can set the ridge to 1/16 x 1/16, but cannot simply turn it off, of make it 0 x 0.

29 minutes ago, Babbhill said:

I don't want a wall splitting the rooms

The wall is only a tool used to force the roof to build as you want.

Once the roof is correct, you turn off auto rebuild roofs, and delete the wall.

Changing ceiling heights is the same. Once the roof is correct, you are free to set ceilings to their actual height.

You also have manual roof planes and for a simple project like this, would be easy after a bit of study and practice.

2 hours ago, solver said:

What if you were building a single story house with 10' walls, how would you do that?

The answer to this is fundamental to understanding how the program works.

Draw a 1 room structure. Make the right and left walls gable. Draw an interior wall down the middle connecting the gable walls. Turn on auto rebuild roofs.

Split the screen so you have the plan and a perspective overview showing.

What happens when you change the ceiling height in one of the rooms?

What happens when you move the center wall?

Open one of the non gable walls and change the pitch -- what happens?

It's easier for us if you post images directly instead of a PDF of an image. This makes it easier for others as an image shows in the forum.

What's stopping you from doing what you want? 

8 minutes ago, Babbhill said:

What I am trying to achieve is the front of the house second wall being 4'

How do you control that wall height? What if you wanted the front and back walls to be 4'. How would you do that?

What if you were building a single story house with 10' walls, how would you do that?

Troubleshooting is much easier with the plan file itself.

Close Architectural, Zip it and attach and I'll have a look.

Your roof is easy to automatically build (shown below) if you learn, and think about how the program builds roofs.

It's also easy to do using the manual roof tools.

I've linked some learning resources above. 

The Help system has info too.

Search the Knowledge Base linked above for tray ceiling.

It helps us to have a clear question to answer.

How do I ......... ?

The simple answer is yes, you can do all of those things. The problem is your lack of control. You can only make all toilets dashed, for example. For a single toilet, you could use a CAD mask, dashed lines on a white filled background masking the standard HD symbol.

Many items (like stairs) have a Fill that may be set and adjusted, including transparency.

There are various ways of doing, or at least getting close to what you want. 

Remember foundations are made up of walls which create rooms just like the structure above. Sometimes the auto foundation builder works, especially for simpler foundations, sometimes you will need to make manual changes.

I set a room as Slab and built the foundation in Architectural. Walls on 1st floor set as invisible.

Architectural has some limitations too.

You will need to show some pictures so we see what you have and you will need to describe what you want.

Grab this wall and move it forward a foot or 2. The program has no place to put your stairs -- all it sees is a hole in the floor.

44 minutes ago, EddieJ said:

I have an off-angle wall.

Open the angled wall or walls and get the angle. Add it to the Allowed Angles.

Or click the off angle wall icon and select Ignore.

Search the Knowledge Base I linked above. Try searching for porch.

28 minutes ago, jomax77 said:

Is there a way to just draw a roof profile

Pro has manual roof tools that may be used to create the skirt roof. Using invisible walls and setting the room they create to Open Below will also work.

3 minutes ago, mistya said:

how would you get the grade of the ground to level out to have access to the front door

Just like you make it slope -- using the terrain tools

Have you watched the terrain videos? Not many, and they are simplistic. Terrains take practice and seem to be more art than science.

I see no problem with doing a typical 1st floor and foundation as a basement. I did this really quickly. There are limitations in Suite, but they don't preclude building the structure this way.

If you are serious about doing this design, I'd think about an upgrade to Pro.

It looks like you need to raise the floor of the balcony -- is this correct? Your goal is to have a flat uninterrupted ceiling in the room below?

If you will attach the plan file, I'll have a look. Close Suite and zip the file.

7 minutes ago, mistya said:

when I go into 3D mode my ceiling for my bottom room beneath the "deck" shows the open deck structure above it.

Showing us an image of the problem helps us help you.

Try Edit>Delete Objects

Have you considered checking the box to ignore the message?

11 minutes ago, guesthouse said:

Can anyone tell me how to do this.

No idea what you want to do.

Give it your best effort, then post a couple of screen captures so we have something to discuss.

What happens when you start a new plan with a single room? 

Make a copy of your plan and delete everything but the 4 walls. Can you change things? If so, add a few random things and try to change. If it works at first, but you have problems as more objects are added, it's almost surely a problem with the computer.

Given adequate resources, the software will work, and the image you show above is a classic video problem.

You can try this.

Post the plan and I'll have a look.

Use the File>Backup Entire Plan tool, then attach the file it creates.