DIY Kitchen Renovation: Removing A Load Bearing Wall and Installing A Load Bearing Beam
I thought I would write this post as an interview given Hubby was the sole mastermind behind everything, who would be better at explaining what was done and why?! I need to mention that He has been diagnosed, by me, as having I-Can-Do -Anything disease ( because he’s an engineer), so make sure you do your research before attempting these things yourself. Also, with the labor, he hired out another pair of hands to help, next time he will make sure the help is under 70 years old ( long story)!
The Interview
Q: What is a load bearing ( will now be referred to as L.B) wall and what made you think that you could attempt removing one without a contractor?
A: The roof of a house is heavy and it needs support, and support walls are those walls in a building bearing the weight of the roof. Not every wall is a support/ load bearing wall. When first looking into it, I didn’t know if I could do it or not. I kept reading that a contractor should be hired because a civil engineer needs to calculate the weight of the load bearing beams that would replace the wall. But because of my experience as an engineer (here comes that disease I mentioned earlier), I knew that there were beam span tables available to give me the calculations I needed to pick the right beam. I double checked everything…4 times over! That is the very condensed version of it, so I promise to do a guest post at how I calculated my specific beam.
The wall separating the kitchen from the living room is a load bearing wall.
Q: What is that structure (the light colored wood) surrounding the remaining studs of the load bearing wall (the darker wood)?
A: I built a temporary supporting wall around the L.B wall because once the L.B wall came down the roof still had to be supported until the L.B beam is in place. The problem with using 2×4’s for this is that they can start to deflect under the weight of the roof and causes the roof to sag which causes other problems; this issue happened to me. I found it would have been better to use lally columns ( a steal support). They can be ordered through from Home Depot.
The lighter color wood was used for the temporary wall
Another angle of the temp wall
Q: So, after installing your temporary wall, you began to take down the L.B wall studs. What tools and techniques did you use for this?
A: I used a recipricating saw to cut down the studs ( it can cut through nails). Just cut at the top and let it fall.
Note: Sorry, I was horrible at taking pictures of this whole support beam process! I couldn’t find any pics of him cutting down the studs!
Q: What type and length of beams did you choose to replace the wall? And what is holding the beams up? What are those metal brackets attaching to the beam to it’s supports?
A: They are (2) LVL beams which stands for Laminated Veneer Lumber that are 14 ft long each. Width of 1.75 in and breadth 12 inch. Holding the beams to the ceiling, I have 3 stacked 2x4s on each side. Their lengths are 7ft. I attached them to existing floor joists. The metal brackets are called joists hangers. I used them to tie the beam to the stacked 2x4s.
The long board with the writing is one of the support beams that replaced the wall.
Here is one of the supports shown with the meatal bracket not yet fastened.
Q: Why did you use that jack to raise the roof?
A: Remember that sag I talked about earlier? It stopped the beam from fitting into place. So, I had to use the jack to raise that part of the ceiling.
Note: The sag in the ceiling created a hole, that we would later patch.
Ok, here are the results after the wall removal and the beam put into place. It took a total of two days to complete this. The plastic is covering a large hole where the wall used to be. Dry wall would later be installed by my Hubby and Daddy ( he’s not the 70 year old I mentioned earlier. LOL). The kitchen and surrounding area already looked soooo different! I couldn’t believe it! And it felt so weird not having to walk around the wall to get to the other side of the house!
Learning To Become a Team
Living in a DIY home renovation can be really challenging for a couple, especially for people like us because Hubby and I are so different when it comes to planning and executing these renovations. I’m more of a planner. I want every single detail written down somewhere and quite frequently I take way too much time to execute. His plans are frequently fluid and he seems to write very few details down ( well, at least not to my liking!). It can be difficult to mesh these two totally different personalities together so that we can actually get some things done and come away with a product that both of us can enjoy.
What I can advise is to let one another shine where the individual strengths lie. And as you help each other, you can make up where the other one lacks. Thus, creating a dynamic duo…even though I know this is easier said than done. It is just something that takes practice…like most things in life!
Well I hope you guys enjoyed this post and will see you on the next one, bye!