Ceiling treatments?

[Baphijmm]

As I continue to get fancier with my build, several questions have arisen with relation to various ceiling treatments. Since they're all fairly related--at least in my head--I hope it's okay if I ask them together.

 

First, the primary inspiration for the interior design I'm working on is Victorian-era interior design; at the time, it was common to paper the ceilings, using particularly fancy paper treatments--trims, cornices, etc., often building up a border surrounding a fill field--in rooms that might see significant regular use by guests, for example the parlor, dining room, or guest bedroom. In addition to building up a border, it also accentuated the often-irregular shapes of crown moulding around details of millwork, large panel frames that at one time would have decorated and hidden structural columns, for example. The problem, of course, is that it doesn't seem that one can define so much as a border ceiling material, much less more intricate items. My current hypothesized workaround would be to create soffits of as negligible depth as the software will allow, and simply defining those with the border material; however, does anyone know of a better way to do this? (Or a way at all?)

 

The second question is quite related, as it deals with much the same sort of definition, and lack thereof--similarly in Victorian homes, the ceilings might have a piece of moulding--something like a simple bullnose at the simplest, some usually-symmetrical piece of varying detail that was itself a set distance from the defined crown moulding, again on the ceiling. In a rectangular room, this could be approximated by a simple wall panel, if the definition of those items allowed them to be rotated along either of the horizontal axes, rather than the current simple single vertical axis. (Coffered ceilings were certainly common, but I'm not talking about those; I know those can be defined via soffits, and quite well.) As with the ceiling paper treatments, I can somewhat see soffits potentially holding the key here, though I'd say less so; I do know HDP allows the rotation of moulding profiles, which WOULD do the trick if they could then also be defined a set distance FROM the walls in the room. Does that make sense? Any ideas? I feel like this could be accomplished with a crown moulding build-up, but I suspect that's a Chief Architect feature.

 

I'm including an example of the paper border treatment; Bradbury & Bradbury (who I believe created this example) used to be quite prolific with these sorts of treatments, but with their current switch to more eco-friendly printing techniques, they haven't recreated their entire former library yet. I'm also including an example of a ceiling moulding treatment like I'm referring to; this example is simple, but frankly it's best to get simple working first, before moving on to more complicated, if that makes sense.

 

I am currently using Home Designer Pro 2023.

[solver]

Try to become familiar with the tools available, then imagine how they may be used to accomplish some task.

Think about what the tools do, not what they are named.

 

A Custom Countertop may have a molding attached, and may be shaped in many ways. Finding a molding profile that will work will probably be the hard part.

A Custom Backsplash is the same, only used in a different plane.

 

Materials will be a problem, like the ceiling border in your first picture. You will need to source, or create a Material, then figure out how to apply it to give the look you are after.

 

If you are serious about this project, you really need Chief. It's available to rent and you could use it to do the things that are difficult in Home Designer, then (after an upgrade) continue working in Pro.

 

You can create your own molding profiles, for example.