Basically Ayumap answered your questions, but I think I may have some screenshots to illustrate ;)
"FlamingoKicker1;867113" wrote:
I was building a house recently and I used a foundation on the house but I also had columns under the front porch "roof" (if that's what you call the overhang on a porch). But then I raised the foundation and now I have a big gap between the top of the column and the roof line? Is there any way to fix this?
Use a room without walls as your porch (which will make it look more like a porch anyway ;))
http://i57.tinypic.com/29x7jp3.png
http://i63.tinypic.com/v6t84p.png
http://i63.tinypic.com/avn8fc.png
As you can see, I like building porches ;)
Or make it look like this (a slightly more expensive option, but has style to it). It's actually a walled room, but with the big mission style open windows.
http://i68.tinypic.com/2nhkemr.png
I have also been wondering about the stairs leading down into a basement? Do they automatically adjust if you raise the level of your house's foundation?
They will, but only if there's enough space for the stairs to extend in the basement itself. Meaning, the stairs will stay in the same position on the ground floor, but as they're higher, they're also longer. Stairs always need at least one free square at the bottom. Seeing as foundations can cause stairs to be raised on a 1/4 tile basis, you may end up needing more than one square at the bottom.
This is the basement of the house on the second image above - the house has a 5 step foundation
http://i67.tinypic.com/2enrbqv.png
I know the grid is turned off, but if you are familiar with build mode proportions, you can see that the space at the bottom of the stairs is just a bit smaller than 2 squares. If my foundation was one step smaller I could have reduced the basement size (by the bottom of the stairs) by one square - If I would then raise the foundation, the stairs would dissappear because there is not enough space near the bottom.