Bi-Level Woes

[HighwayMan55]

Hello, new to Chief Architect here.  There does not seem to be a lot of information on Bi-Level homes.  Having a heck of a time with mine.

 

Currently trying to recreate my house. 

 

I created the main floor, with garage, then added a basement. I drew the foyer in with the first floor.  Below the foyer is the same concrete slab of the basement. 

 

Our foyer is split between the main floor and basement.  I have the stair landing, stairs and opening all correct. But the foyer closet and ceiling heights are what I am having a problem with.  Above the landing itself (includes the closet) the ceiling height is 8' .  The closet currently is still on the first floor level. I can't seem to get it down.

 

The garage is another issue.  The slab is 24" below the finished floor of the foyer.  I followed the steps for creating a split level home to sink the garage down, but it's too far.  And when I try to adjust it in Room Specifications>Structure, it sends all the other numbers haywire.

 

I have attached the drawing so you can see what I'm talking about. 

 

Thanks!

 

[HighwayMan55]

Forgot the attachment

OurHouse.plan

[rlackore]

If the closet is on the basement level, then draw it on the basement, not the first floor.

 

Okay, never mind, you posted a plan. For the closet open the Room Specification dbx and adjust the Structure>Absolute Elevations>Floor value to match the landing height:

 

[HighwayMan55]

If the closet is on the basement level, then draw it on the basement, not the first floor.

 

It's not in the basement, it's in the foyer, between the basement and first floor.

[rlackore]

Yeah, see my modified post above. When you change the closet floor elevation it will move to the landing:

 

[rlackore]

The garage can be fixed by adjusting the Room Specification>Structure settings:

 

 

You can set them to achieve exactly what you want for stem wall height - I just matched the footing on the main house.

[HighwayMan55]

Thank you, that helps a lot. 

 

Any ideas on how to make the ceiling above the foyer landing/closet to be 8'?

[rlackore]

If you want the exterior walls set at 8', then use the closet Room Specification dbx to set the Ceiling ( to 8' above the Floor ©, which is 29.5 inches:

 

 

...but I suspect you're talking about something like this, which can be accomplished by manually dragging the walls down to the proper height:

 

 

For exact control of the height, shoot a wall elevation, select the top of the wall to activate the temporary dimension, then click on and enter the dimension. I used 8'-10" because your closet floor is defined as 10":

 

 

Then you'll have to cap the closet with a soffit to make it look pretty:

 

 

[HighwayMan55]

Thank you for that information.  I am definitely learning a lot with this.  Although it's not quite what I am trying to accomplish.

 

Please ignore that the following photos are from Halloween, it's all I could get at the moment . 

 

I haven't asked about the vaulted ceiling part as I have not yet gotten to that part, I'm just tying to learn one thing at a time.  But as you can see the whole foyer section is lower inside and out.

 

[rlackore]

You will use roof planes to achieve what you want for the foyer - essentially you can ignore my post #8. You'll need to need to go to the basement level and draw a room divider across the foyer to make the landing area it's own separate room:

 

Then open the Room Specification dbx and uncheck Ceiling Over This Room; this is the step that will give you the vault.

 

Then draw your roof planes, set the baseline height to whatever value you need (I used 48" to approximate your exterior picture). You'll get something like this:

 

As you can see there's no need to fuss about with the closet walls - their height will be determined by the roof planes.