Wednesday, June 11, 2014

How We Celebrated Our Anniversary- Part Two: Knock Em Down, Build Em Up

We capped off our first year as a married couple by blowing out some walls in our house.  Like I mentioned previously, we really disliked the cramped, closed-off feeling of the living/dining/kitchen spaces.  So we fixed it.  Or rather, we hired some folks who know what they're doing to fix it.

Here are some before photos:
Bye bye, gallery wall.  I loved you so.



And here are some progress shots:




Our contractor is brilliant and kind of crazy.  One day the wall was there.  Then I got home from work, and there was no wall.  We didn't realize he was doing the wall removal part that day- but he did!  Because he doesn't play around.  

So that's right after the wall came down, and as you can see- wires abound.  Then the electrician and the drywall guy came and worked their magic, and now we have: 




Still to go: cabinets, countertops, lighting, and paint.  Here are come comparison shots of the progress.




Much better!  Can't wait for it to be completely complete, so we can stop storing our chips and cereal in that huge brown cardboard box.


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6 comments:

  1. Studio 77September 20, 2018 at 8:36 AM

    Was this a truss system roof? I have similar model and didn’t need to keep center post.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tom ChappelMay 6, 2020 at 12:39 PM

    Did you have a Structural Eng look to determine if the walk near front steps was load bearing? We have a 1983 Split Entry with Eng Trusses that span from front to back and a SE looked downstairs and said it’s load bearing and we would need a beam installed before removing. I tried to tell him about trusses and he said it doesn’t matter which I’m not sure I believe that totally.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BrochureJune 1, 2020 at 8:37 PM

    This is a great question. We have a 1980 with free span trusses and we want to take our walk down. I’ve talked to a few contractors who said trusses don’t need to be posted or beamed, but engineers who said they do. I’m not sure who to believe.

    ReplyDelete
  4. KIm FranklinJune 3, 2020 at 2:00 PM

    We took down a similar wall. The overall opening was 22 feet and we put up 2 LVL beams. Our house was built in 1963 and the wall was load bearing. We had a little uh oh moment when we took the corner post down but it turned out all right in the end. Now we have a lovely cased opening that spans the area. I did want a little separation but it's very minimal.

    ReplyDelete
  5. BethJuly 5, 2020 at 10:03 AM

    Happy Anniversary. Thanks for sharing this post with great ideas and comments

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownNovember 21, 2020 at 5:05 PM

    Just wondering if hiring someone made it pricey, I have a budget to do what you did but we are thinking about doing it ourselves.

    ReplyDelete

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