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About This Project
The best way to make small or cramped rooms larger is to remove a wall between adjoining rooms. You’ll not only create a larger, more useful floor area but also give your home a feeling of spaciousness. You’ll wind up with an area that seems absolutely huge compared with the sum of the individual rooms. With this project, you can create a cavernous master bedroom from two moderately sized ones, join a kitchen and a dining room to make them feel larger (our project) or create a “great room” by joining the dining and living areas. The framing materials for a typical 12-ft. opening will only run about $200. The bigger expenses will come after you complete the framing, when you restore the trim and redecorate.
In this story, we’ll show you how to remove nearly any wall and tell you how to add a structural beam if it’s needed. It may be scary to think about tearing walls out of your house, but don’t be intimidated. You can do it if you’ve done any basic carpentry work like framing in a wall or building a shed or deck. In fact, removing the wall and replacing it with a beam will only take a half day or less. We’ll show you how to build a temporary support wall to hold up the floor above while you tear out the old wall. Then we’ll show you how to create the beam supports at each end. Finally, we’ll demonstrate a foolproof method for installing the beam itself.
You’ll need a helper for about an hour to help hoist the new beam into place , but you can do all the other work solo. Round up basic carpentry tools, including a cat’s paw (nail puller) and a flat bar, a sledgehammer, a circular saw and a reciprocating saw. Be sure to pick up a couple of 8-in. coarse-tooth bimetal blades for the reciprocating saw to cut through framing and nails during demolition of the old wall.
Sizing up the situation
The first step is to determine whether the wall you’re tearing out is a “bearing” wall or a simple “partition” wall. A bearing wall carries weight from floors and/or roof above, while a partition wall merely separates two rooms. When you remove a bearing wall, you have to add a beam to carry the weight the wall supported. A partition wall can simply be torn out with no worries about temporary support walls or beams, but you’ll still have to go through the same repair work afterward as you would with a bearing wall.
To tell if a wall is bearing, first check the joist direction with a stud finder. A bearing wall almost always has ceiling or floor framing running perpendicular to it. If you’re unsure, ask a building contractor or your local building inspector for advice. If it’s a bearing wall, the inspector may help size the beam or recommend that you have a structural engineer or architect size it. The inspector will check the size, issue a permit and check your work when you’re finished framing (before you start any drywall or finish work). Sometimes a full-service lumberyard will size the beam and sell it to you. In rare cases, you may be required to enlarge existing footings beneath the support columns as well to handle the additional load. That can get costly! For more details, see “How to Identify a Bearing Wall,” April ’99.
Know what’s in the wall. In most cases, electrical boxes and switches can be moved or rerouted relatively easily. But plumbing pipes and heat ducts inside the wall are cause for concern. If that’s the case, contact a plumber and/or heating contractor to find out exactly what’s involved in eliminating or moving pipes or ductwork before you start tearing out drywall. Apply for an electrical permit if you have to move electrical boxes or cables.
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