josefchalat

There is a volume calculator ruby script called VolumeCalculator21. (f you Google the term VolumeCalculator21.rb you will find it). It will tell you the volume in cubic yards. It does a few other fancy little SketchUp tricks

The dropped beam over the corner of the window is going to make a very awkward and unattractive detail. People have an intuitive sense of structure: columns need to look like they support the weight of what they are carrying, even if the reality is that they're a 12x12 box surrounding a 4x 4 steel tube. A dropped beam over a window will always feel like a mistake to the people in the house. They will grow to hate it and the builder who thought it would be OK.

You should cut out the portion of the beam that spans from the lally column to the wall and flush frame with hangers on the floor joists. One end can continue to be supported by the lally column. The other end can be hung from a properly sized beam and supported by whatever number of 2x columns to support it.