By default, the program dimensions rooms from the outer surface of any exterior walls, and from the centers of any interior walls. This would be relevant if you were a builder, since those dimensions are indicative of the materials that would be required. It's also true that the dimensions of a house are measured from outside to outside. But, we probably want to know the size of a room from the insides of the walls, and not so much from the wall centers. In fact, I prefer to work that way, because I'm more interested in the living space in the house. So, before we get any further, let's change how dimension lines are generated, so we can judge room sizes more "naturally".
Go to the main menu and select Edit, Default Settings, Dimension Defaults. The Dimension Defaults dialog box appears. Switch to the Locate Objects tab (shown below), and change the selected check box inside the Walls panel to Both Wall Surfaces. Click OK.
Now when we see room measurements (try clicking on any wall), the automatic dimension lines generated will be from inside to inside of every wall. This way, if we want our hallway to be 3'2" wide, we can make it that width quite easily. Here's how:
Let's click on our house's western exterior wall. Notice the dimension line that appears (shown in the image, below).
Now, click on the dimension shown. This brings up a Set Dimension Line dialog box. We want to make our living room a little wider than the 13'7 1/2" (or whatever your living room width is), so let's change the dimension to 14'6". To do this, we type 14'6 (note the apostrophe tick mark between the feet and inches) in the dialog box and click OK. The wall then moves to the left and makes the dimension exactly what we wanted.
Tip #8: When setting dimensions (anywhere in the program), we can enter our dimensions in a variety of ways. The one I find easiest is to enter feet, followed by the apostrophe tick mark (which means "feet"), then enter the inches. The double quote tick mark (which means "inches") isn't needed.
If we have fractional inches to enter (say, 4 1/2"), we need to separate the whole inches from the fraction with a space. The double quote isn't necessary.
We can also enter decimal inches, so 4 1/2" can be entered as 4.5, and the program will convert the dimension to an appropriate fraction. I don't usually find this especially useful.
The program will handle dimensions up to 1/16" accuracy, but I've never found a reason to care past about 1/8". Truthfully, no house is ever built even to 1/8" accuracy.
So, we have set our living room dimension. We will want to go around and check (and probably set) many other dimensions, including the garage dimensions. We probably want the garage about 22'6" wide by 24' deep. The extra depth gives us space for lawn mowers, trash barrels, bicycles, and anything else we might want to store in the garage. But of course, to set most of the room dimensions, we first have to actually have the rooms. So, let's make some interior walls to break up the first floor.
To review:
So, we quickly draw some interior walls (remember: select the Wall tool, then the Interior Wall child tool) and we step back to admire our progress.
As you can see, I extended the CAD line of the garage front so I could place a manual dimension line. I wanted the living room wall to be set back 5' from the front of the garage. I also added a CAD line in back so I could make the dining room set back 3' from the rest of the house back wall.
To set a manual dimension line, select the Dimension Tools tool in the tool bar (it's the ruler icon), and then select the End to End Dimension child tool (immediately to the right of the Manual Dimension child tool). Start at the edge of the thing you want to measure, and click and drag the mouse to the other edge. Let go and you should have a dimension line. Then you can select the object at one end of the dimension line (but not the dimension line itself), click on the dimension, and set it to whatever you want. The selected object will move.
Tip #9: Sometimes a manual dimension line won't automatically "find" the edge of the thing you want to position. You can move the end of the dimension line if you select the dimension line and find the handle that controls the line end. Sometimes, still, it won't move to where you want. If this happens, you will probably have to do some math and calculate the length you need (based on the size of the object that the dimension line "finds").
OK, let's review some of the room dimensions as I've set them, so far.
Referring to the numbered circles in the image:
Of course, your house may have different dimensions, but these settings are close to what we want. You can play around with wall locations as much as you want, but soon we will be ready to put in the stairs and make a second floor. In fact, on the next page we'll do these things.
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