To add wall and floor finishes in Revit, you model them as their own elements: thin finish walls along each room’s boundary, a finish floor on top of the slab and a ceiling. Here is how to do that by hand, with Dynamo, and for many rooms at once.
Why model finishes separately
A finish layer inside a compound wall type is the same on both sides and along the whole wall, which rarely matches a finish schedule. Separate finish elements can differ from room to room. They also give you real quantities and a clean way to change a finish later.
Wall finishes, by hand
- Duplicate a basic wall type and give it a single finish layer, for example 15 mm plaster or tile.
- Start Architecture › Wall › Wall: Architectural and set the Location Line in the Options Bar to a finish face, so the new wall sits against the existing one instead of being centred on it.
- Set the height to the ceiling level or a fixed height.
- Trace the room boundary, including around columns and the ends of walls.
- Decide on Room Bounding. If it stays on, the room’s area shrinks by the finish thickness.
- Join each finish wall to its host wall with Modify › Join, so doors and windows cut through the finish as well.
Floor finishes and ceilings
For the floor, use Architecture › Floor › Floor: Architectural with a thin finish type. Pick the walls or sketch the room outline, then set the Height Offset From Level so the finish sits on top of the structural slab rather than inside it.
For the ceiling, Architecture › Ceiling offers Automatic Ceiling: click inside a room and Revit follows its boundary. Set the height offset for each room.
How to add skirting in Revit
There are two common ways to model skirting boards (baseboards):
- Wall: Sweep (under Architecture › Wall) runs a skirting profile along a wall. It looks right in 3D and sections, but it is hosted by the wall and schedules as a sweep.
- A very thin wall type with a low height, such as 100 mm. It is easier to schedule and to place room by room, which is how most finish schedules are organised.
With Dynamo
A Dynamo graph can do the tracing: collect the rooms, read their boundary curves, offset them by half the finish thickness and create walls with Wall.ByCurveAndHeight. Finish floors follow the same idea with Floor.ByOutlineTypeAndLevel.
The basic graph is quick. The details take longer:
- Wrapping columns and wall ends without gaps or overlaps.
- Skipping curtain walls and room separator lines.
- Joining the finishes so openings still cut through.
- Running it again after a change without creating duplicates.
- Handing it to colleagues who do not use Dynamo.
