Converted Garage


TominOhio
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I am modeling our raised ranch home using Home Designer Architectural 2019.  I am having some difficulties with room elevations that I’m hoping someone can help me with.  The original home had a single car garage on the south side of the house as shown in the plan view in the first screenshot. 

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When I drew this original house outline, all the walls shown were drawn as exterior walls.  I believe the elevation of the original garage (on a slab) was about 24” below that of the main floor of the house.  This shows up correctly in the camera view of the original garage before I made any modifications (second screenshot). 

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With the original garage, there was a step down from the landing to the garage floor.  The original house was modified by converting the original garage into a den and adding a new 2-car garage next to the original garage as shown in the plan view in the third screenshot. 

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When the original garage was converted to a den, the step between the landing and the garage floor was removed and stringers were placed on the slab (I believe they were 2x6s laid on edge) to support the new subfloor and floor that would be added.  The finished den floor is currently 19” below that of the main floor of the house.  The current configuration is as follows: there is a landing leading to the den with an elevation drop of 10” from the main house floor level.  Then there is a 9” step down from the landing to the den.  This is shown in the fourth screenshot.

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It seems I should keep the room specification of the new den as “Garage” or “Slab” so the program knows to keep this room sunken relative to the main house?  If I change the room type to “Office”, for example, Home Designer changes this room to one that has a full basement, and the floor is at 0” (same as main house).

 

I wanted to change the north interior wall of the den (original garage) to drywall, but because a portion of this wall is still an exterior wall of the house, I had to break the wall as shown in the fifth screenshot. 

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Then I changed the north wall of the den to drywall.  I assume this didn’t have any negative effect on getting the floor elevation right.

 

On the “Room Specification” page, under “Structure”, I’m not quite sure what I should enter for the “Floor Finish” value.  The room has a 90” finished ceiling height relative to the finished floor in this room.  The absolute finished ceiling height should be 71”.  I feel like I may have gotten myself all twisted up by changing some of the values on the “Structures” page.  I changed the relative finished ceiling height to 90” and removed the garage door.  As you can see in the sixth screenshot, part of the stem wall is showing at the base of the den wall (at least I think that’s what it is). 

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When I try to add base molding to this room, it shows up on every wall except where the concrete is showing at the base of the north wall (screenshot #7).

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Clearly, I have done something wrong.  I’m looking for any help to get this room right. For the values I want, what should I change on the “Structures” page?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Have I made this harder than it actually is?

Den Floor Issue.dxf

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Share a copy of your .plan file, posting a .dxf file is worthless to anyone but AutoCAD users. That way I can help you, this way all I can do is sympathize. With a copy of your plan I can then look and see what is happening, without it I can only guess as to what is wrong.

 

DJP

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David, I am sorry you spent so much time trying to replicate my problem with the new garage.  I should have made it clearer I was having trouble in the old garage.  I thought I was doing something wrong with generating the wall that didn't completely cover the wall behind it.  I can certainly work with the soffit to fix it.  Thanks for your good insights and suggestion.

 

Tom

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Some suggestions on asking for suggestions.

 

Ask clear questions. In all of the above, there are only 3 question marks, and only one is a question that seems to relate to a problem.

 

6 hours ago, TominOhio said:

I’m looking for any help to get this room right. For the values I want, what should I change on the “Structures” page?

 

Except, I'm not clear on what's wrong with the room, and what values you want.

 

7 hours ago, TominOhio said:

On the “Room Specification” page, under “Structure”, I’m not quite sure what I should enter for the “Floor Finish” value.

 

Floor finish is carpet, wood, tile etc. In your case, I would make it the thickness of the floor structure and flooring that was added when the garage was converted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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If you really want to be picky, you can leave the "den" designated as a "garage", and then manually build in your own joists, platform and finished flooring.

I used "closed box" shapes for the 2x6's (1.5 x 5.5"), and also the same for the plywood platform, and carpet.  Not hard to do.

You have to delete the foundation and then rebuild it to get correct results, if you have previously altered the foundation structure.

garage convert.JPG

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