y-g-m-n

did you look at terrain specification?

Draw Main house first. under terrain spec is a dialogue about a pad for house that is level and how high subfloor is above surround terrain. This main house FLOOR level becomes the ZERO for everything's Z axis aka vertical. Some threads on here about adding second buildings and I think they stated draw that in another file and then import it and place.. or something like that. Search and read some of those good answers if memory serves as I used them as I have a detached Car Barn and its slab is about 2" lower then house. I do not know elevations, slab heights, floor heights should be simple but sometimes the AUTOMATIC parts of the software fight you. Specially if you have brick house that has brick ledge since you have no control over that.

you can do that on any terrain feature. All they did was add a terrain feature on top of a road but it could be a driveway or a slab or a flower bed.

I have looked in library I am using CAMPAGNE panels: But I increased height to 48" to match what I have Closest to a Gothic Picket we used: Where is matching gate in the main gate library? I looked in bonus library and lots of NON Matching Gates - Heck no matching panels for these gates either. The PICKET gate is probably best choice but looks like crap since boards are different and picket spacing is different. Notice how wide the pickets are on the gate versus fence - just looks bad. I have tried to make it look better with other gates and cheats and well, what you see is where I am at. Issue is gate is wide and those in the library do not take kindly to being made skinny or wide as program just stretches and squeezes the gate to suit width listed. Wrong pickets and spacing when I have it drawn to width they have for it. Wish program was smart enough to figure out how many pickets were required based on picket width and desired gap between boards. So the library gates only look good when you use them at their drawn width - which you do not know and may not suit the plan. Just seems the landscape design portion of Home Designer was an after thought even though they market it for landscape design. Decks are similarly clumsy to design unless very basic, Would be cool if you could make a Door/gate that used the wall/fence material if you did not select anything. I think hidden doors (think Oval office) that are mase to look like walls would be interesting and then would work for gates on fences too. only thing I notice is picket spacing as program just squeezes or stretches pickets to suit width of panel between posts so never looks right unless you guess what they drew it for. Again a way to make my own fence with individual boards would be great especially for estimating since it would give me a good picket count. So now I am having to use other 3d software, autocad/Solidworks/Sketchup etc to design my stuff and then import as library items I need - Real PIA.

Why is it there are some standard Fence panels but no matching gates? Where is the proverbial American WHITE PICKET FENCE and matching gate Opie can walk thru? they have only one with some funky top detail; but it is a panel so it is what it is an you cannot TWEAK it. Also the included rails are some funky size lumber and cannot be adjusted or moved. For landscape design a powerful fence tool would be handy to calc a lumber buy list if the dayum thing was accurate and let me design the fence I want to build. Maybe 6ft privacy with overlap fence boards or spaced with 1/4" gap or 3.5" gaps. Maybe I want 3 rails, bottom 12 inch from terrain, top is 5ft above highest ground point & middle rail 36" Or maybe I want rail on front or back or between posts. Maybe top rail is a 2x4 on side and with another on top on flat for Tee section or ELL section with 1x4 on back. Create a new setup screen Manu box thingy for fences. Base it off of wall menu thingy but include where we can define a custom fence in lieu of using library "PANELS" Let me have some choices for Balusters but call it PICKETS. then have library of them. Rails are like you allow now but make it easier to manipulate them and include the middle rail - Which I still have not figured out how. Define offsets better by adding the FROM box with vert options like others, from terrain or floor or Absolute etc. Horizontal offset should be from Post exterior surface maybe. with option for centered. Post spacing you have but add picket spacing by defining the gap between and gap to terrain and elevation of top or board length so one has choice for crazy ground with many undulations. Just a little tweaking and landscape designing became way easier and better. I mean it would be nice to be able to draw proper fence and then dimension details for fence contractor so they know what to build. Next up would be hardscape, pavers and block/stone/boulder fences. I see where Site says use it for landscape design but really, not a lot of tools for landscape design more just to make a pretty rendering. OK Rant off.

buy or Rent Chief Architect

you need chief architect the pro version where as HD is more for the novice IMHO. HD does have layers you just donot get to create them nor decide what is on each as software does all that ... Their way of doing it in HD but in CA I think you can create your own and/or change items layers like in autocad... HD will never be as accurate as Autocad as for home building where they measure with Tape measure not micrometers. ps way to wake up an olde thread 2016 last post. should read where they all say what you want is Chief Architect

sorry but OMG is that strange... NEver seensomehting like that before.

make new exterior wall and when creating use exterior surface/material you want and color and then use that wall when drawing be it siding or brick. IF existing wall you need to use material paint tool. Click spray can then select material you want exterior wall to be.... Say it is siding and you do not like color... then after chaning to siding shape and size you like then select spray can again. And pic color you like from the paint manufacturers or where ever....and then on bottom of screen lower left you have painting options - select roller looking thing. then spray paint exterior wall you and it will just add that that over top of say sidign to change its color but keep its physical look... play with it.

I do not see a plumbing layer in my 2024 HD PRO see screen shot of layer toolbar thingy

looks like a house with additions over the years which makes it hard to duplicate since if you started from scratch probably would do things differently

24ft is a long span for that depth material.. make sure you read the engineering specs/docs to know max span based on floor load per sq ft based on Center to Center distance and free span. Another note is I-joists tend to need blocking between flanges at ends where they rest on walls to prevent web buckling. your local building codes should state floor loading based on what it is; attic floor, home living area, Commercial office space, etc.

OR make a custom wall cabinet and locate bottom at top of countertop and turn 90 from wall. Then you can either make solid or open it up and have shelves and use that to give to cabinet company to get made.

I would think you would go to: DEFAULT SETTINGS under EDIT tab Then Select FRAMING and click EDIT. And set what ever you want for foundation, 1st, 2nd and I guess 3+ floors if you have them. Walls should not move but since you are adding 2" everything gets taller. PS normal flloor joists are 2x12 nominal (1.5"x11.25" Actual) you list 2.5"x11.875" guess that is some sort of fabricated wood beam or glue lam etc?? 3.5"x14" has tobe glue lam and to use those for floor joists will get real expensive. Also what is under these "BASEMENT" Floor joists as I always though you had a concrete slab poured in basement sitting on some drainage stones packed inside the foundation? What amI missing? Maybe some screen shots of wall cross section showing floor and ceilings would be helpful

Not sure what you are trying to achieve but to locate objects: use manual dimensions. Add a manual point to point dim for the object you want to locate. then click object and the manual dim should go GREY - click the number and change it to what you want the new dim to be and then click return object moves to satisfy the new dimension you typed in. Or the temp dimensions work the same way if they come up how you need them. if you want something 3" from wall, click on object near wall and normally a dim will come up click on the one that locates object as you want and change the number. hit return and it moves...

budget comes to mind before selecting roof material as the difference can be quite large

good deal... Glad I could help some how.

If the upper "dormer" walls are aligned with lower external walls it is not a dormer but a just second story with first floor roof overhang running down the sides. The front wall of this 2nd story room is cut by first floor roof they have option for that too. just a roof detail. you can add with pro using custom roof planes. I think if you look at the HD website and their resource center and training videos you will find one that explains how to do what you have.

another way to do it is: insert a railing type wall all around porch and it will turn into a room and you can then edit the roof features there. Then click on one of these 3 "railing walls" and select open to edit the features. go to RAIL STYLE tab. Select SPECIFY RAILING at the top and select OPEN if you do not have railing If you have railing then adjust what you need to make it as you need. Select NEWEL/POSTS and check POST TO BEAM this wil insert a beam at the ceiling height you chose for that room to support the roof. Then for start of wall syou have post options, none, hlaf or full and same for end. YOu can then select materal for it or color. go to NEWEL/BALUSTERS tab. Set width of posts, offset from edge, spacingof posts (it will round then so adjust as needed to get what yuo want) Pick type of column or go to library to get a fancy one from the library. repeat for other 2 walls and then look at what you have. By doing this you can then drop porch floor as much as you need and have roof auto build correctly (sometimes) I think this is covered in the help or online help thingys. Creating an Attached Porch or Carport (chiefarchitect.com)

when you have brick wall it automatically adds HD's idea of a brick ledge at about 5.5" wide x 3" below slab floor. SO in your example it probably aligned the outside of the studs and then added brick ledge beyond that. If all brick house it adds 11" to overall width and length - no way to adjust other than make adjust thickness in the Wall definition dialog For around where I live HD brick ledge is huge and way oversized for my area and what builders are doing. I think HDpro should allow the brick ledge size be a variable in foundation slab screen thingy.

not really as HD I do ont see HD exporting 3D. It will import STL files but I never tried it. you could use SKETCHUP and then get it into HD. Why not use Solidworks and all its 3D tools to make pretty pictures? I do this all the time to show others within our company who do not have 3d software what things look like from various angles. Our customers do the same take our models and insert into theirs so make their model. Autodesk has some expensive architectural software like REVIT and to make 3d objects for REVIT use FORMIT or some of the other titles they have. Open that wallet though.

ask en engineer what you need for that span to support ceiling joists or if 2 story floor joists. That length you are looking at steel or glulam or such. Also it could run the short span and then beam smaller but joists larger.

maybe attic walls viewing is turned off in that screen

Why not draw the walls etc. based on dims in the plan you purchased. This ensure the dims are correct and what you see is actually to scale on pdf. Call it quality control

I have some funky manufacturing library with a plain folder icon not the one with the CA logo on it. NAmed ZZZZ. Empty I wanna delete it as I have no idea how it got there it just showed up one day. No delete command. PS what is vacuum do in library command when you right click?