Help: Beams over railing on 2nd floor (room open below). Can't get crown molding onto beam, and soffit molding isn't working

[Traxtar928]

Hoping someone can assist me in re-creating some complex wall structure. Using X16 Premier.

 

Structure:

 

The 2nd floor ceiling in this open area is supported by 2 drywalled beams that are in-line with the walls below. One beam is perpendicular to the stairs. The other beam is parallel to the stairs, and has 2 drywalled support columns.

 

Railing:

 

There is a railing under the beams, and along the stairway. The beam perpendicular to the stairs has no support columns, and the railing terminates at the wall with a half-post and full-post at the stairway. The beam parallel to the stairs has a railing with half-posts butting against each of the the 2 support columns and where it hits the wall (ball top posts), and full-post at the stairway.

 

Crown Molding:

 

The large room open to the the 1st floor below has a dual-layer crown molding. The 2nd floor room that uses the support column/railing wall has a single-layer crown molding and a pitched tray ceiling.

 

Attempted Solutions:

 

Things I've tried in various ways:

• I've tried creating this using soffits, but the soffits don't join properly in this application, and I end up with moulding in the landing area at the top of the stairs (this area has no molding). I can't get a different molding to show on each side of the soffit.
• I've also tried using a pass through doorway, but CA prevents me from putting a railing wall over/under a pass through door in a wall.
• I've also tried doing a post-to-beam railing, but moldings will not carry over onto the beam. This also won't allow for the waist-height half-post at the walls and full-posts at the stairway.
• I've tried making the support columns out of 4.5" long walls with railings between, and room dividers. The surfaces look strange and CA is clearly confused by this solution based on exposed sections of framing.

 

None of these attempts have given successful results. I've spent a week on this issue and am totally out of ideas and feel pretty defeated by the software limitations. I'm sure it's user error.

 

Here is the railing and beams I'm trying to recreate:

 

1st Floor view of railing:

 

2nd Floor View of railing (landing area):

 

2nd Floor View of Beams (Landing area):

 

2nd Floor View of Beams (bonus room):

 

I've compressed the FloorPlan 2.plan into a RAR file so it meets the 14mb limit. This is my first time posting on this forum, so if there's a better way to add a .plan file that's less sketchy please let me know.

FloorPlan 2.rar

FloorPlan 2.rar

[Traxtar928]

My FloorPlan2.plan file is 52mb, so I don't have a good way to upload it for review. Any advice for making it more easily accessible is appreciated.

[solver]

1 hour ago, Traxtar928 said:

so if there's a better way to add a .plan file that's less sketchy please let me know

 

Zip format works best. Not everyone does rar.

 

1 hour ago, Traxtar928 said:

Hoping someone can assist me in re-creating some complex wall structure

 

It's helpful to ask a clear question so someone can give a clear answer.

 

I don't understand the problem with moldings, but you can place them anywhere you like, with your choice of profiles.

 

For the railing wall, probably multiple ways to do it. Here I used a wall with doorways.

Draw a railing off to the side making it the width of the opening and marking it No Room Definition. Use the center tool to place it in the opening.

At the far end, I used a Pony Wall with a Room Divider on the bottom and a Wall Cap to hide the exposed framing. 

 

1 hour ago, Traxtar928 said:

and feel pretty defeated by the software limitations

 

The more you learn the software, the easier things will become. 

 

[Joe_Carrick]

It would help to know what version of the program you are using.

[Traxtar928]

7 hours ago, Joe_Carrick said:

It would help to know what version of the program you are using.

 

I listed it after the first sentence, but I probably should have highlighted it. Apologies. It's X16 premiere.

[Traxtar928]

12 hours ago, solver said:

Zip format works best. Not everyone does rar.

 

It's helpful to ask a clear question so someone can give a clear answer.

 

Thanks, Solver. I'll re-upload as .zip.

 

My question is, "How would other users create the walls and moldings in the attached photos?".

 

The two rooms in question (one room is open to below, the other room is the bonus room) have molding profiles configured in the room settings.

 

12 hours ago, solver said:

I don't understand the problem with moldings, but you can place them anywhere you like, with your choice of profiles.

 

This could just be my inexperience with moulding profiles. Typically I configure moldings in the room settings (or soffit settings) and they auto-populate that way.

 

The moldings would not auto-populate on the railing wall beam when post-to-beam was used, and I could not figure out how to end a post-to-beam railing wall with a newel. Auto-populated room moldings terminate at the end of the wall instead of continuing onto the ceiling beam I placed.

 

Using a soffit didn't work either, because the software wraps the molding profile around the entirety of the soffit when all sides are exposed. There's no option to have different molding profiles on each side of the soffit.

 

There are checkboxes for "ignore interior room moldings" and "ignore exterior room moldings", but that seems to be the opposite of what I want.

 

13 hours ago, solver said:

For the railing wall, probably multiple ways to do it. Here I used a wall with doorways.

 

Draw a railing off to the side making it the width of the opening and marking it No Room Definition. Use the center tool to place it in the opening.

 

At the far end, I used a Pony Wall with a Room Divider on the bottom and a Wall Cap to hide the exposed framing. 

 

The more you learn the software, the easier things will become. 

 

Thanks very much for your detailed response. It gives me great appreciation for this community of users wanting to help each other. Reminds me of automotive forums 20 years ago.

 

I'll implement your suggested solution and report back my results. 

[robdyck]

Where you have a ceiling beam, try replacing that using a soffit (delete the default moldings). A soffit should automatically add the room moldings, however where you have separate moldings per room, you will need to do some manual work, probably by creating a room molding polyline and adjusting the polyline. Because the soffit is directly over a wall, the room moldings don't seem to apply properly.

 

[Traxtar928]

4 hours ago, robdyck said:

Where you have a ceiling beam, try replacing that using a soffit (delete the default moldings). A soffit should automatically add the room moldings, however where you have separate moldings per room, you will need to do some manual work, probably by creating a room molding polyline and adjusting the polyline. Because the soffit is directly over a wall, the room moldings don't seem to apply properly.

 

Yes, this is one of the issues I faced when trying to solve it using soffits. I could not get the soffits to join properly where they meet perpendicularly, and adding moldings manually with polylines looked strange in 3D camera views. You can tell where the auto-molding ends and the manual molding begins.

 

Whatever the solution is, I think it will need to be using walls with cutouts and railings. I'm attempting Solver's solution now. Thanks for your suggestion.

[Traxtar928]

Solver (Eric),

 

I attempted to replicate your suggested solution without success. There are still issues with molding showing up where it shouldn't (The beams on the railing wall have baseboard), and there are quite a few framing issues that I can't resolve.

 

There is exposed framing where the pony wall ends, and the railing keeps snapping into the wall (even with manual placement). This corner has given me constant issues throughout the modeling of this floor plan.

 

There is also framing issues where the railing wall intersects the pony wall, and I can't get them to join nicely like your image shows.

 

I've added a .zip file of my plan if anyone wants to take a look at my progress.

 

Thanks again for any help that can be provided!

 

Railing newel keeps snapping into the wall corner. This corner is a problem area for me.

 

The railing sections are merged into the floor and you can see overlapping geometry

 

Exposed framing at the intersection that I can't get rid of:

 

Molding and framing problems I can't resolve.

FloorPlan 2.zip