The Stuborn Wall

Late last year, our neighbors had us over to see their great room after they removed their wall.  It was basically the same wall as ours.  That sealed it for Sandi and I: the wall separating the family room and the dining room must come down.  With resolve matching Ronal Regan's statement to Mikhail Gorbachev, "Tear down this wall!" we made plans for June 22.  My friends Mike and Maurice came on Sunday afternoon and we turned this:

 

 

into this:

 

Before we started cutting the studs out, Mike had the foresight to take a look in the attic, just to make sure the wall was not load-bearing.  He came down from the ladder with bad news: it is load-bearing.  I couldn't believe it.  I looked online for help in determining the structure of the wall.  Basically, wall perpendicular to the ridge of the house are not; wall parallel to the ridge are.  Somehow, our house fell into the 10% of house frames that make all walls load-bearing.

 

I cleaned up our mess and started calling contractors for bids.  Upon first look, each one was surprised that it was load-bearing.  (For those who might be interested, a contractor said the builders did not use trusses and instead 'hand-framed' the house.)

 

It took us awhile to settle on a contractor - Jason.  It took longer to coordinate schedules and be told by the city that we need professional drawings to get a permit.  Oh good, let's unnecessarily complicate things! 

 

While our contractor went on vacation in mid August, an architect showed up to take measurements.  Things began to pick up speed last week when the city actually approved the permit.  We got an email from Jason on Wednesday saying he was getting supplies and will be ready on Friday.  Let's do this!

 

Friday morning came.  Sandi and I are finishing up breakfast.  Jason shows up and we leave.  Sandi comes back at 2:00 and finds this:

 

 

 

The wall is gone! 

 

 

The room looks deeper than we thought it would.  The dining room is so big we had to add the extra leaf in the table to fill the space.

 

There is still a lot to do. I need to wrap the beam (it's just plywood) and fill the hole in the floor.  A dry-wall crew will come in September to make the two rooms seamless. 

We love it.  Having a great room will be a huge benefit for us.