kibalapa

Mick: It is nominally 2" x 8" half-round log siding that my builder gets from Spenard Builders Supply that is the local supplier of that stuff here in Alaska. He was not sure who the manufacturer was; he said Home Depot used to carry it, but it has not had it for a while... A quick internet search got me to to that: http://www.applog.com/products/log-siding/ Hope this helps. Peter

Thanks Mick! Yes! It was just log siding. I have friends that "faked" the corners into log ends. You criss-cross the siding about a foot past the corner. You then nail to the back side of each end two stacked 2 x 8 pieces to add thickness, and you top it off with a foot of siding in reverse - you have to round this one to fit into the rounds of the siding. If you do it right it looks like the real thing. Well, this was to labor intensive for my taste. I will try your ideas on the dormers when I get a chance. I will be busy next two weeks, though I might find some time to play with the computer....

Mick: Thank you for the comments and the article. I guess was unconsciously competent; I was following in my design most of the principles outlined in the article. The garage is log siding to match the existing log house. I have tried to mimic the main structure the best I could. I had to make the garage floor 144" high to give 24" of space above two10' x 10' garage doors - we needed that height for large vehicles. One of the porches is for the guests to enjoy the evenings, the other to park small vehicles, snow machines and the like... I have been saving all my intermediate files so I went back trying to Rebuild 3D to see whether that would fix that triangular hole. It did not. I must have some hidden issues. As to the corner boards on the dormers, initially I thought these were automatically generated. I am not sure about that anymore... Actually the plan for all corners was to have them just like on the attached picture of the shed. Again, I am such a novice to all this that I "do not know what I do not know" to quote someone... I think that the dormers might have another problem due to an unusual rendering inside - see the attached LHG 5c. I was going to play with them after I got roof lines right... Any wisdom on what errors people make with dog dormers? As to the skirt on all sides. I do not intend to have one in the front. I am thinking that 24" overhang might do the trick for the weather we have here in Alaska. In the back I might get a larger roof at a lower level to cover a fuel tank for an emergency generator. But that is for much later... I am worried about that triangle; it suggests some corruption in the process... I am trying to take systematic approach and save everything along the way. I use most default options and then I realize that I have to customize some of them. That is probably where I get into trouble... Thanks again, Peter BTW, Nice design... too contemporary though for this place...

Sorry JoAnn & Mick! I was getting on a flight on Saturday and wanted to quickly let you know that I succeeded using your suggestions. Somehow my follow up reply got lost; I composed it yesterday but did not press Post button until hours later, and it did not take when I finally did. LHG 4b shows a cleaned-up application of your suggestions to the initial design. I tried along the way to add two visible side porches - see 4a, but things went bad when I added the first porch roof - see 4a1. I solved this though by modifying JoAnn's invisible room. Instead of one spanning thinly along three walls, I used two thin invisible rooms next to two gable walls. The result - before cleaning, is shown on 5a, and the cleaned-up version as 5b. Just curious, why is there this ugly triangle opening in the wall. It goes away when I clean up the plan removing the invisible wall. Still curious what makes it happen. Thanks again, Peter P.S. These are for you Mick! I could not find one with tears of joy...

I got it... Finally! Thanks!

Hello Again Mick & JoAnn: I must be skipping some steps, or perhaps I am unclear on some points. I had no problem getting two different pitches on the roof using invisible wall in the middle. (I did notice that other interior walls would not partition the space across but will only run to the invisible wall. I thought that perhaps after uncheking automatic roof rebuild and erasing this invisible wall I would be able to run other walls across. I was going to ask about it later.) I then tried to get the second part by following JoAnn's steps as well. What I got does not look like what you are getting. I must be missing something. Perhaps it is that invisible wall... On her picture the end of the wall was also invisible. O mine it connected to the rest of the structure...

Hello Again Mick, Elovia, and JoAnn: OK! I get it! Using HDA 2015, I did get the shed dormer roof using the invisible wall in the middle. Let me see whether I can get the rest of the roof. Before asking the Pro question in the earlier post I should have tried the solutions with HDA. I do appreciate all the advice that was so generously given - to the point of recreating the gist of my design. Thanks! Peter

Hello Mick, Elovia, and JoAnn: Thank you all for replying with ideas. Do I have it right Mick and JoAnn that you created your solutions in the Pro version of the software? Thanks, Peter (a.k.a. kibalapa)

Mick: Thanks! I have seen these two tutorials.They did not help me! The best solution to match what is there would be a dormer stuck on the gable walls - seems simple in PowerPoint... I have been playing with the idea of gable roofs with two pitches, but I am getting lost in the dialogs. I see no easy way to adjust height of each wall separately in HDA 2015, i.e. I would like to set left wall to 2'4" and run from there a 10/12 pitch roof intersecting with 5/12 pitch roof that started from the right wall at 8'. On paper it seems like a simple task but it is not so in HDA - at least not to me... I have tried using knee walls and different pitch options but it gets me nowhere. I do not understand what "Start at Height" refers to, or what "In From Baseline" means. These may be a well understood concepts to an architect, but to this guy that starts everything from the first principles, the definitions are not clear... If I ever pull off the roof with two pitches I will have to make a fake overhang... As in the attached picture...

Hi Kbird1: Thank you for replying. Indeed the wall on one side is 8' (that is where the 5/12 pitch roof is at), whereas the other wall is 2'6" - that is the wall where three dormers are located on the 10/12 pitch roof - see the attached East Side picture. The dormer tool does not let me just extend the gable wall and stick the 5/12 roof on top. Perhaps I am using the wrong approach, but I want to get the look you see on the picture. Actually, this thing is already up; my builder figured it all just from the PowerPoint sketch. I am trying to do partitioning inside and design the interior of the upper floor, but that dormer wall sticking 6" from the gable wall inside is what is holding me back - see the camera view picture Inside East. In the actual structure it is all one surface - see East Inside - Photo. Design-wise, I still have plenty of work to do to just clean it all up. I have not even started playing with stairs. Just for reference I have included the HDA 2015-created plan of the second floor. BTW, I am using HDA 2015 on a MacBook Pro running 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 8GB of RAM. My experience might be slightly different than that of Windows users... I looked at the Saltbox design you suggested. This article (http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00735/) shows the way, but it appears that there is a wall in the middle. Perhaps it can be made invisible. Again, I am not an architect and have just three days of experience with the software. Thus, I will need some step-by-step explanation of things that are quite obvious to the experienced users. And one more thing how does one add this huge beam into the design? Soffit Tool? Thanks again for replying.

Hello HomeTalk Members! I am not an architect but decided to play with HDA 2015 to see whether I can recreate a design I originally put together with PowerPoint. The design is that of a rather large garage (44' x 28') with an apartment above it. The apartment has a gable roof a cathedral ceiling spanning the whole length of the garage. One side of the apartment has three gable dormers and the other side has what is essentially a shed dormer. So, one side of each gable wall supports a 10" x 12" pitch roof whereas the other side of the wall supports the 5" x 12" pitch dormer roof. A single center beam spanning the structure makes this whole design possible possible. It was relatively easy using the tutorials to create the three gable dormers. The problem is with the shed dormer. I can bring its walls close to the gable walls of the garage, but I cannot put the dormer walls on top of the gable walls. I understand this to be a limitation of the tool. Is there a work around? Thank in advance for all helpful suggestions!