Help With Porch and Paio

[skearney00]

Looking for some guidance on how to best draw up the front porch/entry and patio area of my home.   I have Home Designer Pro 2017 and I'm fairly new to the software.

 

For the patio, I was thinking to define the section with the roof/cover using the room divider, add the column, and then add soffits to create the stucco structure under the roof.

 

The front porch--I'm not really sure.  At first I tried creating a really tall room, but the structure needs to comes up over the garage roof plane.  A dormer doesn't seem like quite the right option either.

 

I've attached pics of both areas for reference.  Appreciate any advice on how to tackle these areas!

 

Thanks!

ShawnHome.plan

[solver]

This is probably the best first post I've seen. Good description of the problem and what you are thinking as a solution. Attached appropriate pictures, the plan, and even filled out your sig. Good job!

 

I'd build the patio just as you said.

 

For the front, do the same, but add a second floor above creating the part that extends above the roof.

[skearney00]

Thanks.  I'll give it a go!

[LawB10]

Here's what I came up with.

 

shawn1.plan

[skearney00]

Here's what I came up with.

 

 

Thanks, LawB10.  I'll take a look.  Haven't had much time this week to work on it.

[skearney00]

Thanks Eric and LawB10 for the help.  I've made some very good progress, but I'm stuck on a couple of things on the porch.  

 

1. The ceiling on the porch is higher than the rest of the first floor at 126".  When I change the ceiling height for that room, the whole first floor height seems to change with it.  How do I make it so that only the porch ceiling changes?

 

2. Having difficulty getting the walls/column on the porch to match up flush with the 2nd floor walls.

 

In the attached plan the column is in the correct location and correct height. I need help making the ceiling, soffits on both sides and 2nd floor walls all match up flush.

 

 

 

Shawn-PorchCeilingHelp.plan

[solver]

That second floor room over the porch needs to be Open Below, and the porch should have Ceiling Over This Room unchecked. You are essentially using the second floor ceiling as the ceiling for the porch.

 

Go to second floor and click on one of the walls. In the Edit Toolbar, there is a tool that will align the wall with the one below. Just mouse over them to find it.

[skearney00]

Thanks for the quick reply.  I'm not quite getting it however.  I think I left out a key detail though.  That "room" over the porch is attic space.  It's a dummy window/dormer.

 

Still, if I set the floor of the 2nd story room to 126", it raises all the exterior walls.

 

 

Before and after shots

 

 

 

[solver]

 

 

Still, if I set the floor of the 2nd story room to 126", it raises all the exterior walls.

 

 

 

 

Don't mess with the floor.

 

Think of it this way.

 

The first floor area of the porch has no ceiling, and the second floor of the room above has no floor (you set it to Open Below).

 

Just set the ceiling height of the 2nd floor room where it needs to be -- like 20", or what ever you need to add to the first floor to get the required height.

 

The reason you added the 2nd floor is so you could make adjustments without changing the first floor.

[skearney00]

Really appreciate the help, but I'm just missing something.  Open below the 2nd story room blows a whole through my ceiling.  But maybe I just need to fully draw out the interior.  Let me finish the plan with out the 2nd story and come back to this.

 

 

 

[solver]

Your plan has some problems that I could not fix. Copied the first floor to a new plan, built a new second floor. 

 

Take a look at this plan. I did not use the Open Below, just reduced the 2nd floor, floor structure and raised the 1st floor ceiling to 126"

 

Shawn Porch (eric).plan

[skearney00]

Getting oh so close!  Everything is looking pretty good except for some "clipping" areas that I can't figure out.  I used the align wall below tool.

 

I copied the 1st floor over to a new plan with a mono slab and removed the column and soffits to better see the problem area.

FixedFoundation2-2ndFloorTest.plan

[skearney00]

I seem to need to be able to 'break' the exterior wall where it meets the porch divider, that allows the porch portion of the exterior wall to extend to the elevated ceiling height.  However, I only seem to be able to break the wall at the midpoint of the porch wall, so I'm still left with a small gap.

 

Attach render with and without wall break.

[skearney00]

I've tried so many different ways to get this to come out right--but can't.  Doesn't seem to matter whether I raise the ceiling from below or raise the floor from above, the exterior wall surface of the 2nd floor is cut by the framing/studs of the perpendicular walls

[solver]

Sometimes, you need to take an elevation view, select a wall and drag its edge into position.

 

 

FixedFoundation2-2ndFloorTest (eric).plan

[LawB10]

What was wrong with the plan that I uploaded? It was built according to pics you uploaded, There was no need to make changes, that's why your having

problems.

[skearney00]

What was wrong with the plan that I uploaded? It was built according to pics you uploaded, There was no need to make changes, that's why your having

problems.

 

Thanks Eric and LawB10 for the help.  I've made some very good progress, but I'm stuck on a couple of things on the porch.  

 

1. The ceiling on the porch is higher than the rest of the first floor at 126".  When I change the ceiling height for that room, the whole first floor height seems to change with it.  How do I make it so that only the porch ceiling changes?

 

[skearney00]

Sometimes, you need to take an elevation view, select a wall and drag its edge into position.

 

skea.jpg

 

FixedFoundation2-2ndFloorTest (eric).plan

Thank you!!! Looks good.  

[LawB10]

No it wasn't, the first floor ceiling heights are 108" to include the front porch, The second floor height was 30".

 

When you use "open below" it adds 12 or more inches to the lower floor. There was no need to use open below as you won't have a ceiling

for the 1st floor.

 

There is no need for architechural blocks, that's where you problems are. All you had to do was take 2 boxed shapes, resize them and add a material.

 

Again there was no need for you to redesign the plan. It was already done for you.