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Second Floor Doors & Windows

Dormer for the East Bedroom

OK, let's start by drawing 3 walls in the front of our bedroom, as shown below. I have measured and placed the walls so that the dormer will appear "balanced" between the house proper and the eastern end of the bedroom.

If you feel confident placing CAD lines, then do as I have done and use CAD lines to line things up. Otherwise, you might find placing these walls to be somewhat ... tricky. Try adjusting the left-hand dormer wall until it's 4'9 from the wall to its left. Then adjust the width of the dormer until it's 4'7 from inner edge to inner edge. Since we have carefully placed this bedroom's walls (we did, didn't we?) this dormer should be a snap. If you haven't yet adjusted the garage walls and the bedroom walls to ensure the bedroom is exactly centered over the garage, then you'll have to do that before you can do this.

Next, use the Break Wall tool to cut out the wall at the top of the dormer. Piece of cake. We now have a dormer. All we don't have are windows. So, let's decide on what basic window we want.

Double click the window tool icon to bring up the Window Defaults dialog box. Change Window Type to double hung (as shown below), and set the Width and Height to 30" and 48", also as shown. The Floor to Top setting of 80" should be correct.

Now, click on the Lites tab to bring up that dialog page. Change the Lites Across and Lites Vertical to 2 and 2, and if the Lites in Fixed checkbox isn't checked, check it.

Now, go to the Casing tab. Set the Casing Width to 2 1/2 (if not set, already), and check the Sill and Apron checkboxes (if not checked). Uncheck the Suppress Casing checkbox, if necessary. Click OK. That's all we need to set our default window. We can alter individual windows as needed, but this will be the window we will use in most situations.

Now, let's put a window in our dormer. Simply click the mouse more or less in the midpoint of our dormer front wall, and a window will be inserted. Deselect the Window tool and then select the just-inserted window. Click on the Center Object child tool (on the left of my screen shot, below, two blue arrows pointing toward each other), and then click on the front dormer wall, more toward the inside than the outside of the wall. This centers the window on the inner wall. Clicking toward the outer edge centers on the outer wall. In this case it doesn't really matter, but there are many situations where it will matter. The window should now be centered just as we want it.

Master Bedroom, Nursery, Office, and Upper Foyer

OK, let's place windows and doors in these rooms. Remember how I showed the front facade and the windows? Well, let's put windows just where I showed them. We will also put in doors, but do you see? I made an error in my haste (I'm not going back to fix it, now) so I have moved the walls right where the hashed red circle is in the image, below.

The items I placed are as follows:

  1. 2 -30 x 48 windows in the west wall of the master bedroom, 3' 0" apart and centered in the wall. See tip #15, below.
  2. A 48 x 48 window in the center of the master bedroom bay window. You can experiment with other window types and sizes, of course. It all depends on what you want.
  3. A 30 x 48 window in the front wall of the nursery. It's not (quite) centered in the wall, although you could do that. We'll cover how to create the "eyebrow" gables over these windows, later.
  4. A 30 x 48 window in the office, about 5" (inches) from the inside corner, and another 30 x 48 window in the Open Below area over the stairs, also about 5" from the inside corner.
  5. A door between the nursery and the office. Place the door 4-5" from the inside corner.
  6. A door between the hallway and the master bedroom, but note that the walls need to be moved as shown, first. Center the door in the hallway.
  7. A door between the master bedroom and master bath. Center it in the short hall.
  8. A door into the other bathroom, from the hall. I made the hall just long enough for this door.

Tip #15: Windows are often "grouped" into sets of 2 or more along a wall. If you want to center two windows (whether or not there is space between them), select both windows by clicking on the first window, then pressing SHIFT and clicking on the second window (and third, and so on). Once you have selected all the windows, you can use the Center Object tool to center the entire group.

Tip #16: Interior doors always open into rooms. Look in your own home and see that this is true. 30" is a good width. 28" may be acceptable in some tight situations.

Closet doors usually open out, unless the closet is a walk-in. Closet doors can be narrow, if the closet is narrow.

Exterior doors always open in. 36" is a good width. Double doors are also common. I haven't found a facility for placing outward-opening storm doors in front of exterior doors. But, if you know how, please tell me.

Depending on the presence/absence of interior casing, doors should be 3" to 6" from adjacent walls. Some casings are wider, so plan accordingly.

Doors should be placed so they open against a wall, if possible. Look in your own home for evidence of this. I usually don't place doors in the middle of walls, just near corners.

When you have a door placed between 2 parallel walls (such as at the end of a hall), put the doorknob on the right side of the more traveled direction. Don't anguish over this, however.

Walk-in Closet, Master Bath, and North Bedroom

The view below shows where I've placed doors and windows in these rooms.

Here are the items placed in this view:

  1. 2 - 36 x 18 windows centered in each closet wall. Both windows' top heights are set to 88", so that the windows will be above the 60" high shelving in the closet.
  2. A 48" louvered double door in the walk-in closet. I placed the door 2'6" from the top wall. To make the door 48" wide, simply place a regular door and drag one end handle outward.
  3. A 36 x 18 window placed 88" to top in the master bath. This puts the window above the mirrors.
  4. A 30 x 48 window centered on the top bedroom wall.
  5. A 30 x 48 window centered on the outside of the right-hand bedroom wall.
  6. A 30" door centered in the opening.
  7. A 30" door centered in the opening.

It looks like we're done (for now) with the second floor. We do have to work on the bathrooms, but we will come back for those. Let's go on the first floor and place doors and windows, there.

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