I bought my brother and sister out of my parent's home when they passed. The house was built in 1861. The first work I've done to it was to tear the front porch down and rebuild it. I thought I may could get away with just a repair but I ended up having to take it all the way down and rebuild it from scratch. Nothing is square... not even close. The front porch had square nails in it and the boards were true 2x6 and 2x8. I got up under the house and you can see the beams were axe cut in places, maybe all of them but I didn't crawl that far back under there. The front and side frame of the porch go in the brick columns and rest on those columns. You talk about aggravating. If I had it all to do over again I would have probably blocked it up inside the brick and used the block to carry the weight instead of running inside the columns and out the other side. I could have got things a lot more level that way. Just cased around the brick columns so you couldn't see it. I got everything as close as you can get it with what I was dealt and it looks OK but it sure feels like putting lipstick on a pig. You put a laser on the corners in this house it would probably blowup!