Have a slab, need a porch with a roof

[HomeLinda]

Hello, I just purchased the software so using Home Designer 2026. I was doing so well until the porch. If there is specific help for porches somewhere please point me in the right direction!

I built a slab in front of the house, 7" below floor of house, for a step-down porch, but it's just a slab so I can't label it as a porch or put a roof over it.

I tried using railings to build a porch on top of the slab, but it doesn't create a room, so I can't label it as a porch.

I would like post and beam over the cement slab, with the gable roof in the middle of the front of the house extended forward to cover the porch.

See screenshot for what I am trying to draw.

Hope that makes sense, thanks in advance for your help!

[y-g-m-n]

draw it as a room - As Always use the HELP button it is very useful in anything.

 

For walls use railings but

Set roof to what you want over wall in thie case the front wall would be GABLE the sides HIP.

CHECK - Rail style = open

CHECK - Newel/Post = Post to Beam

Play with type of post at wall start and end 

 

NEWEL/POsts Set width, any offset from wall, spacing then choose what you want for column in library

 

 

Room Dialogue

Set Type to PORCH

Set floor Absolute elevation to your -7" (negative nunmber as 0 = top of 1st floor slab

 

Pretty sure they have videos on website or something.

 

PLay with software as it takes many hours of playing to find what works best and how to do things.  

 

[HomeLinda]

Thank you!! I think this will work, but I need to delete the gable I have on the front of the main house before I added the porch. I think I should have built the whole thing together rather than in pieces. Like you said, need to do lots of playing around to figure it out. I will look for videos, but I think I am the one causing my own problems by trying to add the porch instead of building it from the start. Thanks again!!

[HomeLinda]

Ok, I started over completely and included the porches as exterior walls. Now I have multiple gables on the roof because I have multiple exterior walls. Could someone point me to some help specifically for roofs please? Thank you!

[Garybills]

can you share your plan file and maybe I can help you figure it out. 

[HomeLinda]

Thank you for the offer! I went back to the main rectangular house and drew with gabled ends and slope in front and back. Added garage to back of house, but offset slightly from edge of house and put gabled end on it and it worked. Did the same thing with a back porch. I am still having problems with the front porch, but I think I just need to figure it out and get the hang of it. I do appreciate your willingness to help me! Let me see if I can get it the rest of the way. It's not incredibly intuitive, and like anything else, just need to spend the time to become proficient. If I can't get it by tomorrow I will get back to you for help. Thanks again!

[y-g-m-n]

read about GABLE lines

check the exterior walls by clicking on one and then open the EDIT dialogue.

Go to ROOF TAB and review what you have as they list a few types but for most applications HIP or GABLE is what you would choose.

 

SO for porch side walls select HIP

POrch Front wall select GABLE

[Jo_Ann]

[HomeLinda]

Wow - thank you all, I got it working. It looks great! I drew the side porches and then used the Roof Plan tool to draw a roof line just in front of the porch and then pulled it back onto the main roof which gave me a shed roof and then worked with it for a long time until I got it to connect to the center porch roof and main house roof.

 

One problem - the left column on the front of the main porch is too short. I have tried soooo many things to fix it - including deleting that railing and redrawing it, deleting that railing and then copying the one on the right and reflecting it over to the left - still too short. I can't figure out how to attach a plan but will attach a screen shot.