Hi Gerald.

it seems like this should be easy?

Yes, and probably you set it one day in the past, and forgot about that.

Template Options > Layout > Component > Column Options and everywhere must be "Select a Option" or "Inherit" ,but not 12 as you probably have. It's simple "grid math".

Thank you, yes that did it. Can you aslo tell me why it is ignoring the header space? If I dont add padding which makes the front page screwy, the text sits below the header and menu.

I am also trying to set the sectioncolumns to 3+6+3 but the right column keeps collapsing very small

As I noticed you added that

#sp-right .sp-module {
  margin-top: 50px !important;
  border: none;
}

you can also reduce padding around right/left modules, here is default value:

#sp-left .sp-module, #sp-right .sp-module {padding: 30px; }

using 10px - will increase module content up to 20px for each side.

So.

Also, without hacking the articles template php file, is there a way to make the template display the article main image? thank you

If image will be used in Blog Media (tab) - yes, then image will be displayed at the top of article. Screenshot from my site.