Canfield Research Group LLC

Only interior walls of a room (see Walls, rooms, floors, ceilings) can have baseboards and even then baseboards cannot wrap around an entryway. There are a couple of easy ways to create a custom baseboard object. I feel the last method presented is probably the most flexible, reliable and best able to work when a new version of FloorPlan is released.

In this discussion Base wall refers to the wall that will have the custom baseboard applied to it.

Custom 3DS object

It is possible to create a baseboard by using a simple custom 3DS object (like a block). This method works but has some disadvantages; the size can only be set in the properties dialog making resizing more difficult and the corner pieces will not be mitered at a 45 degree angle (unless another special 3DS object is created).

The downside of this method is the difficulty of editing the baseboard length and the seam that occurs when this baseboard encounters a normal wall baseboard ().

Custom Wall

A wall makes a handy baseboard. The general idea is to use a specially designed wall placed on a separate location. The wall should have the following properties:

• Height: 3” (or whatever you desire)
• Width: 1/2” (or whatever you desire)
• Baseboard set to 0” / 0” and turn off wainscot and chair rail. The wall itself will be the baseboard.
• Interior material properties set to simulate the trim desired.
• Exterior material properties set the same as Interior

• Baseboard, Trim, Wainscot and Chair rail materials are NOT used

Create a location that is at the same Floor Level as the location with the walls you want to add baseboards to. For walls on the Ground Floor this would normally be at a Floor Level of 0”. I usually name this new location something like Ground Floor Trim. Select the new location using the old location as a tracing level. Set the grid so that the baseboard walls can be aligned adjacent (or even slightly overlapping) the base wall faces:

• Tools / Options
• Show Grid: Checked
• X Spacing: 1/8” (or <= .5 * you baseboard wall width)
• Y Spacing: Same as X

• Snap to Grid: Checked

Now draw the the baseboard walls. With the exterior and interior properties set the same there is no need to worry about enclosing the walls into a room. When drawing the baseboards you may wish to overlap the custom baseboard with existing wall trim to properly handle miter corners. When doing this be very careful to set the properties of the custom and normal FloorPlan baseboards the same exact values.

WARNING Due to an anomaly in FloorPlan the ends (including top and bottom) of walls are the interior color. Additionally if the wall is external the ends are the original interior color regardless of the current wall face interior material setting. The best solution is to use invisible walls to wrap the entire location in a simple four wall room. Then the interior colors of wall faces can be changed and thus the ends. See also Walls, rooms, floors, ceilings.

The downside to this method is that moving walls requires adjustments to two locations. This is usually a minor inconvenience since there are only a few walls that need custom trim. Another problem is that this custom baseboard often leaves a seam where it overlaps a normal wall baseboard (). This seam is very small but can still cause rendering issues. Other rendering problems can occur depending on how FloorPlan overlaps the two baseboards since they are at the same 3D position. The problem is worse if custom baseboard goes to a corner. In this case the custom baseboard is not mitered and will never connect seamlessly to a normally wall face baseboard.

Short wall using Baseboard (*Best*)

Create a very short and very thin wall that has a baseboard defined. When placing this wall overlap the wall with the face of the base wall. The first step is to create the baseboard wall object.

• Width: 1/8” (The width can be anything you can easily hide inside the base wall. Often a 1” wall works but use the same baseboard wall for all my trim and 1/8” works well most everywhere).
• Height: 3” (Can be almost any height but I use the same height as the baseboard)
• Baseboard Height: 3” (adjust per your preferences)
• Baseboard Width: 1/2” (adjust per your preferences)

• Set Baseboard material to your default settings

Adding the baseboard to your plan be be done in a couple of ways. It is possible to add the baseboard to an existing location but that can become difficult to maintain. The problem is that to get the baseboard to appear the wall face must form the perimeter of a room (see Walls, rooms, floors, ceilings. That is usually much easier to do on a separate location. I almost always use a separate location, at the same Floor Level as the base wall, for my trim details as well as other special objects.

Getting the wall face to be a room perimeter can be tricky. This image shows how I accomplished this for a corner of an entry way. The custom baseboard will merge seamlessly with the base wall baseboard so there is no need to extend the custom baseboard wall all the way to the end.

The baseboard is always going to be mitered at 45 degree angle due to the invisible walls. This can make it difficult when the baseboard needs to meet with another non-baseboard element such as door trim with a different texture (). With a it of extra work the mitered end can be converted to a butt-to end by reversing the wall back into the base wall (). Be very careful when creating the room with invisible walls. Many times the walls will connect at a point just short of the end which will make the walls difficult to move. Use the zoom and manipulate each wall to make sure all walls are connected at the ends. Delete any segments that are past the ends.

This solution is probably the best of the methods presented here. It uses baseboards as baseboards so all textures, height, etc. seem to work properly. The downside is having to add invisible walls to make the baseboard wall a perimeter. I think the results () are worth the extra effort.