I am new to Sketchup and so far it has been fairly intuitive, but I’ve reached a dead-end on trimming the 2x4s in order to create the shed roof. I thought I could draw a line, creating a trim line and then push the un-needed portion off. Same for a front door and windows. Is it because the 2x4 is a component? If so, is there a way to revert a component to a basic shape?
To modify a component the way you want, you must first open it for edit. Otherwise the line you draw is outside the component and doesn’t interact with it.
Steve is correct that you need to open the component for editing so that the drawn line can interact with the geometry.
Before you do that, however, you’ll need to make the components unique or they will all get cut to the same length. I did that for the pairs in the GIF but not for the rest of them and here’s what happens.
You should be able to draw the top plate right on top of the cut studs. Probably easiest to use the Rectangle tool.
I opened your model in SketchUp Pro (the paid desktop version) only because it was slightly faster than uploading it to the web version. There’s really no difference in ease of learning between the versions. The paid versions offer some additional tools and in the case of the desktop versions, options to add more tools in the form of extensions. Whether or not you need those depends on what you are modeling. Either way you should get comfortable with the native tools first. SketchUp Pro also gives you LayOut which is useful for creating various types of documentation from your SketchUp models.
Another consideration would be using SketchUp for your work. If you are planning to do that, you would need either SketchUp Shop or SketchUp Pro.
From a carpentry POV, it’s much easier to cut things square. So a flat plat atop square cut studs would be standard. But it also serves a point because the rafters will normally be birdsmouthed over the plate, which arguably is a better joint than two flat surfaces meeting.
They do. But now you have to buy two plates and bang in up to 20 nails for each rafter. If you do it the traditional way, no need for any plates and you use two nails at most!