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you mean like this?

Ok, I will tell you how I do it. Most of what I do on XM8 is self taught, so usually there is a better way I don't know about.

By the way Leonardo DaVinci was famous for drawing perfect circles freehand on his friends' doors- that way they knew he came by when they weren't home. So once you follow my instructions you will be a Leonardo DaVinci of the adjusting world.

First thing to understand is to make a rectangle and convert it to a circle. To make an "arced" wall you must start with a straight wall. What we are going to do is bump out one side of a rectangle into a half circle, then do the other side.

If you want your circle to be a perfect circle, and have the correct size, start with a rectangle that is as tall as the diameter you want. Make it wider than you need, we'll fix that later.

So if the circle needs to be 13' diameter, make a rectangle that is 13' high and 18' or 19' wide on the page.

Next right click one of the vertical walls and go to properties. Change it from NO to YES on the arced wall.

(If you don't see the question about arced wall you did something wrong. Your in the drop down menu for the ROOM instead of the wall. You gotta make sure when you right clicked that you made the WALL turned blue highlighter so you would be able to go into properties for the WALL and not something else like ROOM properties.)

Now your rectangle looks the same but the wall is ready to be bent to your will.

If you click on it again you can pull it outwards 6'6" (or half of 13').

If you had trouble pulling it to exactly 6'6 then you can change the numbers to exactly 6'6" with the roller wheel on top of your mouse.

If you don't have a mouse with a roller wheel go in your car to Walmart and buy one. It is essential for Xm8

Now you are almost done. Just feel the pride now that you have probably made a curved wall maybe for the first time.

Now move the other wall over as tight as you can so you get a half moon shape.

Now right click that straight wall and change its properties to arced, and pull it out 6'6", just like you did the first one.

Now if you right click on the name of the room you will see that it has a tiny straight part at the top and bottom- for me it is 4" wide. That is equal to the width of a wall that is not there.

So top to bottom our circle has inside diameter of 13' but left to right it is 4" too wide.

So just pull the two walls in toward the center 2" each to make the circle perfect.

Now the circle has a perfect 13' inside diameter measured vertically on the page and also measured right to left

The fact that two tiny 4" portions are actually straight instead of arced is such a tiny issue I wouldn't care - you can't tell by looking anyway.

So maybe there is a better way to do it but this works for me.

If you really need it I can make a video

 If you just make a circle some random size and then try to stretch it to the size you want I think you will have problems. That's why I recommend starting with a rectangle that has the height equal to the diameter you need.

And now for the bonus questions:

Are there any special line items to use for drywall in this room?

Is there a special line item for the baseboards?

What is the correct square footage for the carpet material?

Curved Stair.jpg

Jud- the curved stair is very impressive. Unfortunately I bet that took hours.

Regarding the waste on the carpet:

the square footage of the circle is pi x r squared, or 3.14 x (6.5 x6.5). That equals 133.09.

A square that covers the entire circle would be 13' x 13', or 169 sq feet.

The old school drop and roll method of calculating carpet is how carpet installers actually calculate, and how adjusters used to be taught.

Most carpet comes in a 12' wide roll but can often be ordered 15' wide.

If you cut 13' off of a 12' wide roll you would almost cover the whole circle.

If you centered that piece you would have a 6" margin on either side measured at the widest point of the missing piece.

Since the room is wider than 12' you would need to seam it somewhere.You could probably take the waste from the corners and use it on the two edges. If that's true a 12' x 13' piece (156 sq ft) would cover the whole circle. That would be a 17% waste factor.

If you cut 13'6" off of a 12' wide roll then for sure you would have the 6" piece to do the two edges. So 12' x 13'6 (162 sq ft) is for sure enough material, unless the carpet has a directional pattern to it where you can't turn the waste 90 degrees. But 12' x 13, or 156 sq ft' might be enough material

12' x 13'6 or 162 sq ft is about 20% waste factor.

I think 162 sq feet of material would be reasonable, but you could drop it down to actual size of 133 sq ft if you are doing several rooms and you know there are waste pieces from other rooms that could fill in the 6" space.

(You could also push the 12' wide piece all the way over to make a 1' wide missing piece and then you would make only one seam instead of two, and you would need 12'x 13' plus about 4 to 6 sq feet for the missing part or about 161 sq ft.total)

How do my calculations compare to the way Xm8 does it?

I did this math to show that the correct waste factor, if you use that method, is probably about 20% for a round room, not the 10% so often used as a blanket waste factor. But 10% would probably be OK if the whole house is being carpeted, and zero% is fine if you are doing only square or rectangular bedrooms that are 12' wide.
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I agree with using 1/4 drywall doubled up. Drywallers will often spray the drywall with a fine mist from a garden hose to soften it up for a curved wall.

But I think Xm8 also has a line item for the flexible drywall.

Thanks Leland; each stairwell took about 30 minutes plus the time to do the diagram.  The basement contained a stairwell just like the one seen in my post above.  The basement stairwell walls were clad with carpeted walls as well as the rooms' walls below.  However, the walls in the basement were concrete installed on a radius.  Creating the room with the curve and curving out the Bar adjacent to the walls took longer to do than the stairwell.  Fortunately, the loss was large enough that this particular carrier's flat rate permitted some wiggle room to address the finer details.

Keep in mind you only take one additional measurement when you have a curve.  This applies whether you have a curved wall or stairwell.  Getting that sucker to fit is the trick and that's why I suggest creating a dummy file that will get locked up several times before you get the diagram you want to use.  

Nice take on the area and waste calculations.  This probably goes without saying, but we must be mindful that salvaging waste and incorporating seams is normally dictated by what seams are present.  Typically if a structure has curves in it, the property owner wasn't asking, "how much does it cost?" when it was built and/or installed.  As such, the materials would likely have been installed with as few seams as possible.

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I believe we are talking about the same material.  The material description for the 1/4 inch drywall describes how it is flexible.  It just doesn't include 'flex' or flexible in the title of the material:   1.25 Drywall.pdf