Ben wins the TUAK elbow fitting of the Internet for today, with honorable mention to the numerous people who mentioned the one essential I completely neglected last summer: Diagonal bracing.
I didn’t have anything at the bottom right to connect a come-along to. But I do have a Jeep. So first thing this morning I relocated the hummingbird feeder, looped the end of my tow strap to the highest part of the corner post, connected the come-along to the Jeep’s rear bumper, and carefully pulled the porch square. That worked pretty well.
Pictures are taking too long to upload this morning and I need to get back to work. A full report later. Problem I’m working around right now: diagonal braces need to be fairly stout and (big surprise) I didn’t order enough 2X6s. I have EXACTLY enough for the floor and the roof joists, scrounging the floor joists from shorter pieces I already had. BUT I do suddenly have some fairly large pieces of scrap plywood, and I have several 8′ 2X4s. So I’m making corner braces from the plywood to supplement 2X4 diagonal braces, and more or less depending on hope from there. The best I can do is the best it’s going to get.
I’m also not going to be able to finish the floor this weekend because I completely spaced on buying more 2 1/2″ deck screws when I was in town Monday. So the only hurry is that at the moment the Jeep is an integral part of the porch and at some point I’m going to want it back…
Call the neighbors to see if any of them have what you need to get it done right, until Monday. Surely somebody have a jar or box of screws laying about.