Still working on porches....still

 So here's where we are on the porches. 

 He got all of the ends reinforced....

 And most of the wood decking has been laid.

 Now read carefully.....

first of all.....go to THIS POST about 7-8 pictures down and read the part where it starts out...."The other thing we have actually lost sleep over....."  

Then you will understand this part.

 So, if you look directly down at the corner of the deck in the above pic

 or on the end here, or look in the below pic, you see these three cement beam thingys (pylons?) that go into the ground.  I was here the day they were pouring these.  They are HUGE and long.

 And they are holding this up. 

 That, and these beams which are about to bust...

 If you look closely you can see the cracks and bends in them.  Yes, it is past time to get these porches done. 

 

If the porches go down, this entire end of the house goes down.  

And back to the big beam thingys, well one end settled 3/4 of an inch, as we suspected.  

Did you read the other post mentioned above? It explains it.

 That 3/4 of an inch probably explains this.....

And I've been priming and painting these bases and caps for columns.  One coat of prime, two coats of paint.  I had to move them all inside, because you are supposed to use oil based paint on them.  Well, the paint doesn't dry before the bugs and such get all over them and stick to the paint.  So after the second coat of paint, I had to sand all the bugs off.  Then apply the third coat.  I don't like the way they've turned out, and since I have this many more to go, I took the paint back (the unopened paint) and bought latex.  It's very complicated with the whole column thing. You have to prime the caps with XIM ($20.00 a quart) and then paint them, because they are plastic.  The columns are fiberglass, which require a different primer (cheaper) or you can sand them down.  If you sand the columns down, you can use latex.  If you don't sand them, you have to use oil.  Oil paint sucks.  (that is the blog authors opinion, and not necessarily the opinion of others!)  

Cindy