Jo_Ann

Bob, Have you added the 2nd floor (to support the dormer room)? I added a 2nd floor with 0" ceiling (2nd floor extends over porch walls, too). After defining all the wall roof tabs for the 2nd floor, you can go back down to floor 1 to work on the porch (and you can leave auto roof on until you draw the interior knee walls and raise the ceiling within those knee walls on floor 2). I used invisible walls for the porch. Remove the roof from the porch room in the dbx (floor 1!). You can then extend the porch room out 18" and add the extra connecting walls to keep the room definition. You should then go to floor 0 to reset the porch foundation walls where you want them. I recess the foundation walls somewhat, because a porch slab usually overhangs the foundation a little bit.

Bob, Your upper pitch doesn't look steep enough to allow a dormer. Recheck the real roof pitch. The real dormer looks like it is also a gullwing roof. I had to draw the dormer manually to be able to access each wall/roof tab to make it 2 pitches. I think with Pro you can explode a floating dormer to enable access to each wall definition?

This is what I got with the settings that are shown.

Looks like just an upper/lower pitch setting on the roof tab of each wall definition.

BRAVO! Thanks for sharing!

You CAN build the dutch gable roof with ordinary wall and room definitions, as well as a gull wing roof. However, doing both together on the same roof may not be possible. As said in other posts, you need to post a good picture of the existing roof. Kbird: custom cupolas? Huh???

Because the user wants to use framed windows, maybe this thread is more relevent: http://hometalk.homedesignersoftware.com/showthread.php?19502-Double-Bay-Window-in-room-corner

What? No pic to share??

You CAN'T turn off 'auto build roof', then delete invisible wall, then draw skinny porch room and then REBUILD roof! Your roof has to be correct in every way before you turn off 'auto build roof' and start deleting invisible walls! You can't rebuild the roof again after making changes. Study the 2d floor plan pics again, and the settings listed. YOU control those walls. The end wall (porch) is invisible too. Also note in the 2nd floor pic, that 'use soffit surface for ceiling' is checked. The overhang ceiling surface will not look correct unless you check that.

Mick, Try it and you'll see why the 153" is needed to straighten out the peak of the roof.

I can see that you have already added floor 2 with ceiling height at 30". Add invisible wall down the center of the room. Open the room on the left and raise the finished ceiling to 8'. Select the left wall and follow the roof tab settings shown in pic 2. This creates the 'dormer'. In pic 2, notice the invisible walls drawn around 3 walls of the building (they are dashed red). It is kind of like a really skinny (depth) invisible porch, and this forces a roof to build ( thus creating a 'fake overhang'). Pic 3 shows a close-up of the 'room' details (the 'room' is colored gold, for clarity). I hope the number details are clear enough to see. Pic 1 is the result you should get. While creating this, some of your objects and settings may change or move. Frustating, but just keep going back and resetting them until they behave. I hope this helps! When the roof is correct, turn OFF 'auto rebuild roof' and you can then delete the invisible porch and the 'fake overhang' roof will remain.

Room ceiling should be set at 2.10m and then build roof. When you no longer need to rebuild the roof for ANY reason, turn off auto rebuild roof. THEN raise the finished ceiling height to 2.70m.

OR, you could just increase the depth of the wall cabinet by 1" and then bury the extra inch in the wall. Backsplash all gone.

P.S. In a prior post, you said you wanted 3' lower walls of stone, and DJP advised you to use soffits, too. It doesn't look like you've done that yet.

What is a 'barely-attached' garage? Maybe you should post a pic of your floor plan. Also, your numbers don't seen to be realistic. Remeasure. Also, when building the foundation remember to account for the default height of the footers,and add some extra height to allow them to be below ground level. The steps you listed are correct, but it doesn't sound like you followed them.

There is a wealth of information (with pictures) in the knowledge base. http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-01197/52/Home-Designer/Roofs/Creating-a-Prow-Roof.html

Add soffit as shown in the shaded area.

Referring to the thread Kbird mentioned, has Suite now included pony walls? If not, you can still mimic the 3D look that you want by overlaying some of the exterior walls with thin soffits (with different heights, making them appear to be stepped). The pink walls in the example are soffits.

Unless 'sloped soffits' was added to Suite 2014, that has never been an option for HD Suite.

Who sez you can't use more than 1 soffit (smaller)?? If Suite 14 has shapes in the library, use a wedge (made small & thin) up where the ceiling begins to slope.

I'm just guessing, but from what I see I think your only option is to cover the upper wall with a very thin soffit.

This example has 107 5/8" default ceiling heights and a 4/12 pitch roof with the overhang eaves reduced to 2". The front porch room has the finished ceiling lowered to 101" and the garage has the ceiling lowered to 113". This example has a overhang on the front porch wall (as you stated). Because the overhang has been almost eliminated in the roof build dialog, you have to create one. That was done with an invisible room (which builds a roof over it) thereby creating an overhang. My invisible room is 12" deep. Floor c has been dropped to -24" to bury the floor structure. The ceiling is set to 118 5/8. Once you have the roof looking correct, turn OFF 'auto rebuild' roof. You can then raise the garage ceiling (so that you don't bump your head trying to enter the kitchen!)

What is your default 'finished ceiling height' and what is the roof pitch?

Or does the roof look like this?

Mick... I originally did the basement with 12' walls and set the ceiling to 8'. But the only way to step the footing (with HDA10) was to make rooms, to be able to alter each stem wall height (below the slab). However, those 'rooms' wreaked havoc on any attempt to divide the basement up into any other desired room arrangement. Then I followed your chieftalk link, and got the idea from that thread to reassign the room level so that a seperate 4' basement could be added below the real basement. The 'rooms' down below don't affect the real basement above, and the 'room' walls don't show in the real basement 2d plan. Yep. I saw your previous post about the version 10 content going away, so I made sure that I had everything I wanted. I don't remember where I got the avatar because it was quite a while ago. It is really an animated GIF, and when displayed as such, her eyes blink and she scrunches her lips! You really need to find an avatar soon, because you look really colorless! Rich... Yep...I am more radiant than I realized!