Newbie questions on starting with an apartment

[CreativeBone]

Hello everyone - newbie here, just started with Home Designer Suite in an attempt to redesign my apartment, so please be patient. 

 

HD definitely takes some adjustment (especially for someone with zero prior design skills), so keep stumbling on seeming annoyances or questions and wonder if I could get some tips. I'm going to dump them as a list instead of spamming the forum with dozens of topics...

 

• Walls - what is the recommended approach when setting up the walls that are exterior to the apartment unit (but interior to the building) - use interior walls or exterior ones?
• Dimensions - I've got a lot of grief with dimensions, which seem to default to measuring from either outer points or midpoints of walls instead of doing it from interior points. I have no problem to adjust them but occasionally they do change back. Is there any way to force all interior dimensions to always use the inner point?
• Room fancy corners - one room in my apt has decorative corner relief (sorry, don't know what the proper term for this is - see the pic attached). What is the right way to add it to the plan (I guess, I can make it up of 4 wall fragments, but I wonder if there is a better way).
• Niche - I've got a niche in the [exterior] wall, which is 9" deep. What is the recommended way to implement it - "make" the wall thicker than 9" and add it as a niche or model it as a "caved" wall and then figure out how to define different ceiling height for that area?
• Dimensions - probably due to lack of experience, I constantly have my plan dimensions change slightly in response to something (e.g. changing seemingly unrelated wall adjustments). I wonder if there is a way to "lock" some dimensions making sure the program never changes them, even when I tweak some other part of the plan?
• Are there other tips w.r.t. modeling an apartment unit, rather than a house?

 

Sorry for the handful and thank you in advance for any tips!

 

[CreativeBone]

Hi Eric - thanks for the tip! (updated the signature).

[solver]

1 hour ago, CreativeBone said:

Walls - what is the recommended approach when setting up the walls that are exterior to the apartment unit (but interior to the building) - use interior walls or exterior ones?

 

Use exterior walls for exterior and either one for walls common with other apartments.

 

1 hour ago, CreativeBone said:

Dimensions - I've got a lot of grief with dimensions, which seem to default to measuring from either outer points or midpoints of walls instead of doing it from interior points. I have no problem to adjust them but occasionally they do change back. Is there any way to force all interior dimensions to always use the inner point?

 

Read the docs on dimensions. Suite may be limited, but you may be able to set your defaults to measure to the surface.

 

1 hour ago, CreativeBone said:

Room fancy corners - one room in my apt has decorative corner relief (sorry, don't know what the proper term for this is - see the pic attached). What is the right way to add it to the plan (I guess, I can make it up of 4 wall fragments, but I wonder if there is a better way).

 

Use a soffit.

 

1 hour ago, CreativeBone said:

Niche - I've got a niche in the [exterior] wall, which is 9" deep. What is the recommended way to implement it - "make" the wall thicker than 9" and add it as a niche or model it as a "caved" wall and then figure out how to define different ceiling height for that area?

 

There is a niche tool in some versions. Check the docs.

 

If not, use a pass through and a soffit to close it up.

 

1 hour ago, CreativeBone said:

Dimensions - probably due to lack of experience, I constantly have my plan dimensions change slightly in response to something (e.g. changing seemingly unrelated wall adjustments). I wonder if there is a way to "lock" some dimensions making sure the program never changes them, even when I tweak some other part of the plan?

 

No way to lock dimensions, but you should not need to. Turn off auto dimensions and use Temporary Dimensions.

 

To delete and turn off auto dimensions, go to Edit>Delete Objects and choose interior and exterior dimensions.

[solver]

The YouTube channel linked above has some good 1 hour long getting started videos that are worth watching. Just know theye are using Pro not Suite, so you will not have all the features they show, but it's the concepts that are important.

 

Also, you can import SketchUp symbols from the 3D Warehouse (google it), and there are bonus catalogs available on the Home Designer site with all types of interior things.

[CreativeBone]

Whoa - got a lot of work cut out for me! 

 

Thanks a lot, Eric for the pointers!