Jo_Ann

Solver nailed it. Use the doorway and pass-thru, inserted into a full interior wall. Extend the pass-thru slightly into the doorway. Drag (in 3d view) both up to meet the hang-down size of your header. Pull the bottom of the pass-thru up or down to the bar height. Suppress casings on both doorway and pass-thru, BOTH sides. Make the soffit counter, and hold down Ctrl key and drag into place. I tried using a half-wall, and a soffit (as a half-wall) and neither of them would build a baseboard for some unknown reason. Usually they do.

KDJ, In the pic I posted, the upper floor is 'open below'. I tried to angle the house so that it would show, and I also painted the back wall to display that feature better. The glass (shower) wall option is in the wall dialog box, within the different wall types listed.

Mick, HDA has very few options for stairs, so I had to do what I had to do. Keith seemed to indicate that he only wanted railings where they were absolutely necessary, that's why there is no rail on the left side lower stair and the upper stair right side (especially if there is a window there). With HDA, embedding the stair in the wall is the only way to eliminate those particular rail sections. In your pic, I see that you eliminated my soffit newel on the left back of the lower landing. I put it there because I thought it was necessary for attaching the glass rail? When experimenting with someone's plan, lots of times it is surprising to learn something new. HDA does not have the option to remove stair ballusters (you either have an entire rail or you don't have a rail at all). Today I learned something NEW!!

Keith, Your graphic card is newer and probably better than mine. I think it's more about textures that are used, and lighting, which greatly affects the render outcome result. I also like to use material definition to alter textures. HD library textures 'as is' are not the greatest.

Ok. Here is the plan. I don't know if this will really be of any help, because my dimensions and Keith's dimensions are probably not the same. I used his floor plan jpeg to try and get it close. I backed up the plan including the textures. Have you ever looked at the textures incuded in a backed up plan? I never used a lot of those textures in there! Why are all those extra textures put in there????? KeithK stairwell.zip

P.S. Is this the place with the moat??????

Hi Keith, Here is my tryst at creating this stair flight. I 'smoked' the glass, because regular transparent glass doesn't look very good in 3d. Of course you could vary the degree of transparency. You don't need the invisible wall on floor one. The railing wall on floor 2 should create and define a room as 'open below' and that creates the open stairwell...which doesn't interfere with the remaining ceiling (beyond the stairwell) on floor 1.

Here is an example using the glass wall option (it allows you to place windows, invisible wall does not). Upper windows are placed program windows. Lower windows and siding are all made using soffits. Interior ceilings soar. There is no protruding wall in the interior vaulted ceiling. It's all up to you. You might want to download the free trial of Pro, and see what the different options are. If you plan to use the program a lot and you have deep pockets, it might be worth the extra cost to you. The HD website offers a substantial rebate if you want to upgrade.

The only way to fix problem #1 (in any lesser program than Pro), is to cover it up. Use an isometric wedge (library shapes) sized to cover the interior siding, and made thin. Place it up against the siding, and partially submerged into the siding. Problem #2 is more extensive. Make the offending wall invisible, or change it into a glass wall (the same thickness as an exterior wall). You then repeat the process as with problem #1, only this time on the outside and the inside (split thin shapes equally to simulate drywall & siding). It will require numerous pieces to simulate both the interior anf exterior wall parts that are missing. It is tedious, but I think that it is the only solution for problem #2 (with any HD title less than Pro). You might try searching the forum, because there have been other posts about this type of problem.

The five 'steps' were individually exported from the program as 5 jpegs and then sent to photoshop to be merged as one. I then added the text and arrows. You can probably do the same thing in the paint program. You can also import the jpeg back into the HD program and then add the text and arrows (within the program), or, add the text and arrows before exporting it the 1st time.

Be sure to use the 'break line' tool and not the 'break wall' tool.

Use the custom countertop tool.

If that is a sliding door built in a wall below the right side of the stairway, I don't see how it would ever be functional in real life.

Is that door installed in the wall that the left side of the stairway is against? It appears to stick out above the right side of the stairs? Is there a wall built under the right side of the stairs? Is it a sliding door or a swinging door?

You have discovered the pitfalls of needing to rebuild a roof after you have made changes to a lot of your settings. You need to do a lot of backstepping on the 2nd story main house floor. You don't need to delete all the interior walls, but you DO need to drag them all back from making any room connections. The whole floor needs to select as ONE room. THEN draw the invisible wall that has been suggested. The room created south of the invisible wall, should be set to 0 finished ceiling height. The room to the north of the invisible wall should be set to the finished ceiling height of 8 feet. Try rebuilding the roof to see if it behaves. If all is good, then move into the garage bonus room. Draw the invisible wall there also, and set the south room ceiling to 0", and set the north room ceiling height to 6 feet. Work with your roof pitches until you get what you want. When the entire roof is correct (and ONLY when it is correct), turn off 'auto build' roof. THEN you can raise the bonus room ceiling to 7 feet, and the 6' slope ceiling will remain at the back wall.

Those 'dormers' are not dormers. They are simply rooms drawn on your 2nd story floor plan. If you are suggesting that you want to extend the 2 front left closets into the roof slope area, then you need to draw a wall where you want them to extend to, (or drag/extend the existing interior wall that is visible in the floor plan) and designate the wall (wall dialog box, roof tab) as a knee wall (so that the roof will continue to slope over it). Posting a 1st floor plan jpeg would also be helpful.

Draw a wall that matches the same length ( feet, inches) as one of the outer walls of the blueprint jpeg. Hold down the ctrl key, and begin to enlarge your jpeg from one of the diagonal corner handles (this will enlarge the jpeg while keeping the proportion correct). When the length of the jpeg wall matches the wall you have drawn to that same footage, you are ready to begin tracing.

After you have turned off 'auto build roof', the program will then allow the use of the material painter to paint individual roof planes.

After you have made that wall a full gable wall, open the wall spec box. Under the roof tab there should be a place to choose 'full roof return'. You can also set the depth that it extends out from the wall.

I think what you are seeing is the intersection of the 2 eave overhangs. Spread the 2 interior walls apart. Break the gable roof at each interior wall (on each side) , then open the 'middle' room spec box and remove the roof. Reduce the eave overhang (build roof icon spec box) to 2". Zoom in the 2d plan and start moving the walls back together until the 2 dashed overhang roof lines merge. Zoom in a 3d view and see if this looks better. Turn off auto build roof and then delete the interior walls. You can now build a solid interior wall to cover the ugly roof intersection at the ceiling level. If you need large exterior overhangs, you will need to build invisible exterior walls to create that effect, just as you did for your prior cottage project. You will need to do this before you turn off auto build roof !

Use a soffit as a wall.

Use a half-wall (railing wall) instead of a foundation wall. Make this wall the thickness and texture of a foundation wall. Open the room spec of this 'room' to alter it's elevation. Open each wall spec to change it's height.

Yes, you can. Select the top 2 step stair-segment, right click, copy/paste this on the opposide side of the stairs. Grab the rotate handle of the pasted segment (the little triangle), and rotate so that the arrow 'up' direction of the steps is going the correct direction. Then move this segment into position. Do the same with the bottom four step stair-segment.

Dialog BoX Knowledge Base tutorial: http://www.homedesignersoftware.com/support/article/KB-00317/140/Home-Designer/Walls/Railings/Creating-a-Half-Height-Wall.html

If you broke the railing wall correctly, the wall dbx of the 2 landing walls can be opened (in 2d) and the height of each rail can be changed.