Merging two individual rounded objects in illustrator CS6

Question

The roof and the body of the house are individual objects that have individually been rounded. I want to combine these objects without affecting the rounding features already on each object.

But when I try to use the Shape Builder Tool, it manipulates the rounding of the edges in a weird way.

I have tried many things with the shape builder tool (i.e. only highlighting certain parts of the shapes, holding shift), but I can't get it to just happily merge the two edited-shapes. I want to do this so when I add a gradient overlay, the overlay looks smooth and not like its affecting individual objects.

I am new to Illustrator, so this may trivial, but I appreciate any help anyone can give!

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Select both objects and go to 'Object → Expand Appearance' before using the shape builder.

Answer 2

You can combined two shape of different radius with Pathfinder

Answer 3

There's something you can improve in your workflow to avoid problems like this.

1. Create the triangle and the rectangle shape;

2. Open Pathfinder from: Windows -> Pathfinder;

3. Select the two shapes, in pathfinder panel, click "Unite";

4. Switch to Direct Selection Tool (Shortcut is "A"), select the anchor points you want to get rounded, drag the handle; You can select multiple anchor points at the same time, so they can be rounded to the same level.

5. After that, you can apple any effect to the combined shape.

Note this: Always hold down Shift key when you resizing this shape, or the corners will be flattened.