DaveCampbell

Thanks for the idea @Rookie65 - the floor issue definitely has something to do with either the foundation or the floor below.

@Garybills - thank you SO much for those efforts and details. i will get to work to run through each of those walls. i don't think i have a firm understanding of how real roofs actually work or are designed and constructed so i found that level of detail quite overwhelming. and the floor was somehow related to the foundation - another detailed area i kind of threw my hands up on. you have a great handle on this tool - i'm sure your customers get some awesome designs. i am finding using a 'professional' design tool a bit of an uphill climb, but the 3D results will be very much worth it as we start to work through how we'd like to make some changes. hopefully, that effort will be useful as we start to engage designers and contractors about what we're thinking about and then work back to what is possible and affordable. thanks again for your efforts. i hadn't been on this since last week - have to partition my attention a fair amount to keep from going down rabbit-hole after rabbit-hole - a techno-junkie's dilemma!

Yeah, sure. Don't go too far out of your way - there's probably a lot of things I am doing wrong compared to folks using this tool for their everyday work. As an engineer (EE), and even some AutoCAD experience many decades ago, I thought this task would be easier than it has turned out to be. I even upgraded to a new Mac in order to mess with this thing. I think the Mac version of Home Designer may have issues - lots of features I see in the docs that aren't on my version, and it does crash every so often. Notes on the house, if it matters: The garage and 'sunroom' are on a slab, which is like 12" below the floor level of level 1. The roofs on those are challenging, to say the least. No idea why I'm spending so much to get the existing right - those are the parts of the house we are hoping to tear out. But I want to see if this is easier than what I am making it. AS-IS.plan

thanks for your reply. floor finish is set to 7/8", which i think is a default. i would not have ever changed anything like that. and the second option doesn't appear to be available on my version (Mac). i'm sure all the dependencies at play in the software is subtly involved - and those dependencies are what is driving me CRAZY. between foundations and Stem Wall Tops,and about 30 other aspects that change and affect all the other pieces - i'm really finding this tool to be just too much. and don't get me started on roofs. these 2 rooms were added to the house and one has a simple shed roof, the other a hip roof, but one angle must match a shed like roof that merges into the roof overhang on a front porch. i've spent probably 4 hours this week on JUST that - and the roof looks like a Frankenstein. at some point there needs to be a simple option where you just drag the hip where it needs to be, or raise one side of a shed roof with a simple arrow. and all i'm trying to do is draw my existing house in order to run through some design ideas for an expansion. i can't even get the existing house drawn up. but thanks again for your suggestions.

have spent way more time than i thought i would with a $100+ tool, trying to simply draw up my existing house in order to start thinking / drawing up renovation plans. anyway, i have 2 rooms (a garage and a sunroom) that seem to have lost their floors. these are on 'slabs' as that seemed the only way i could reasonably control the floor heights, which is about 12" below the regular house - and actually are on slabs. i fiddled with the foundations and the stem walls, etc., etc. for hours - just to get the floor offsets to look even close to reality. so is there is some basic sanity check i can perform to explain why i have lost the floors on these 2 rooms? the floor materials show as concrete and terra cotta, respectively, but i see nothing but blue-sky in the 3D view.

everything i do in 3D just returns dark gray screens. fairly disappointed that i couldn't even save an hour's worth of energy. ridiculously strict for such an expensive tool. i'm on a mac, if that matters.