Jo_Ann

Organize your wall layers correctly, so that the exterior walls will display correctly.

The sloped soffit works. You're just not doing something right. You also have a big problem with the new walls you defined.

I didn't realize the pics you posted were the problem railings, so I set out on a mission to recreate the rail in the 1st pic. I think it's pretty close. The objects used are color coded. I drew a rail. Unchecked upper rail and lower rail; set newels to 0" width; set balusters to .75". Upper and lower rails are replaced with soffits. Top horizontal rail is a soffit; arched top is a cylinder shape. Post is a box shape. Bottom post trim is 2 soffits; top of post is a millwork cap. The decorative trim on the post (where the rails join onto) is a profiled cabinet drawer from the library.

I guess it goes without saying, if you need to customize something, then you need to show a jpeg of what you are trying to do. Someone might then be able to help.

The only way to fix that (with Architectural) is to cover it with a sloped soffit. I recommend adding the soffit on the attic level, then lowering it to where it needs to be. Putting it on the attic level prevents it from blocking your doll house view of that area.

If you are using the program for a business, and you wish to use one of the Home Designer products, then you should purchase Home Designer Pro. There are lots of auto-build possibilities for railings, but some designs might need to be created from scratch (piece by piece). You need to download the trial version of Pro, to see for yourself what it offers, and if you like it. Should you decide you would like to upgrade (after purchasing Pro) to Chief Premier, Chief Architect offers a substantial discount.

Delete the foundation, then rebuild it. The floor 1 structure should then be correct.

I think that you will have to create it from scratch.

Using auto-build roof: Settings shown for roof #1. Settings for roof #2: The only settings to change are for the west wall and east wall of the off-set room. Change the roof pitch to at least 8.5" for those walls.

The north wall in the room above the garage, is set as "no room definition" "no locate". Why is there no terrain perimeter?

You DO have some problems at the front of the center room. Make sure the front center room gable wall extends to the invisible vertical walls, left and right. Check your wall roof settings...some of them are marked "upper pitch". You have a problem with the front right veranda room overlapping the center room roof. It looks as if the overhangs are too big, and also the left wall of the veranda needs to move away from the center room. Make sure the house exterior wall still extends to the invisible wall (if you move the veranda wall, the house house wall might move with it). Get the dashed roof lines to line up the way they do in the pdf.

If you just follow the roof settings shown in the pdf, the roof will auto-build correctly.

You have never experimented with the label tab on the cabinet???

Search in the forum and also the knowledge base for "Z" fighting.

Try these settings, exactly, and see if it works for you. The cad lines are used, so that the wall breaks can be exact.

Is this what you want?

Did you check to see if the deck is on floor level 0?

What ever you are looking for, might have been moved to one of the free bonus catalog downloads.

I don't know why you find those instructions to be frustrating. You can skip the wall type clean-up, but the house model will look bad. Just do the dormer settings, the garage west wall roof pitch, and the family room (1st floor) north wall roof pitch. DONE, and simple.

Plans done or corrected in a trial version of the software can not be saved. First thing you need to do, is to clean it up...correct all the wall types on the 2nd floor and the attic level. This will then require re-aligning them with other walls, and also with parallel walls. Next thing I did, was to lower the ceiling in the large room (2nd floor) to 86" (it can always be raised back up AFTER auto-build roof has been turned OFF). I set the west wall roof of the garage to 7.5" and left the east wall at 10" (working on 2nd floor) This closes the ridge gap, but it also leaves the roof a little lop-sided. It is what it is, with auto-build roof, and the current position of the walls. Also, the roof pitch on the north wall of the family room (1st floor) was raised to 11".

This is pretty close to what you want, but I don't even remember how many adjustments I made (lots of them). I had to move some walls, and change some roof pitches on some walls, to get auto roof to behave. This indicates that you really need to re-measure your dimensions. A lot of the walls are set as incorrect wall types. Everything matters. I did find out that the dormer walls that contact the large gable wall (garage side) was messing up the roof build (gable) on that large wall (as shown in your pic). The 2d pic shows a work-around for that problem. The crazy garage ridge line, was tamed by altering the east wall and west wall pitches (back and forth, trial and error)), and neither one of them are the same pitch.

Did you change the roof overhang on the wall?

If you've noticed, when the exterior room is selected, the bathroom is not included? Looking at a doll house view, the bathroom has no floor. The east window wall of the bathroom, needs to be pulled back and allowed to resnap to the living room wall.

If you post the plan file and also a jpeg image of the real house, someone might be better able to help.

Maybe one of your contractor friends can guide you through some of the basics. You haven't shown what the problem is, for anyone on the forum to help.