Knocking out the wall between our living room and the kitchen was the best thing we did in our first house. I’m still not sure how the wall was not structural, but it was not! We lived in the house with a 2 foot hole in my ceiling for 2 months just to find out if it was structural or not. Friends, let me tell you, that 2 foot hole in the ceiling was worth it 100%.
Knock out the wall!
Now you can sit at the kitchen table and see everything. It is glorious. The house is 1700 sqft, but with the wall up it was not an efficient use of the square footage. I wanted to use every bit of space in the house to my advantage.
Here’s what I did:
- Floorplan:
- Design a floorplan so the whole space works together (living + dining + kitchen).
- For us, we kept ½ the wall up because of kitchen cabinetry and storage that I didn’t want to lose.
- I think it is important to make your plan first so that you know exactly how much you want to remove and how you will work the rest of the room around the new opening. You don’t want to have to build back a wall you knocked down if you don’t have to!
- Design a floorplan so the whole space works together (living + dining + kitchen).
- Check the Structure:
- So after we had the floorplan designed, it was time to check the structure to see if this wall was load bearing or not.
- We pulled off the paneling + cut a hole in the ceiling to make sure the wall is not structural. You may not have to cut a hole in the ceiling, but my attic did not allow enough space to confirm the wall was not structural.
- If you have drywall, I would wait to see if the wall is structural before removing the drywall. We went ahead and pulled the paneling off because we were impatient and wanted to see what was behind the wall.
- Call a licensed contractor or engineer to come look at the wall / joists to check on the wall.
- It’s important to get a professional opinion on this because you do not want to remove a wall that supports other rooms in the rest of the house. That could lead to major issues down the road!
- DEMO TIME:
- Once you get the go-ahead that the wall is NOT structural you can get out the sledgehammer and knock it out!
- tip: If you are keeping part of the wall you will want to score the drywall so that you do not end up ruining the part you want to keep.
- Pull off all the drywall/paneling.
- Us a prybar to remove the 2×4’s from the ground/ceiling.
- Move the electrical so it is not dangling in the free space.
- Always turn off the power to any electrical wires before you touch anything.
- Once you get the go-ahead that the wall is NOT structural you can get out the sledgehammer and knock it out!
- Repair:
- Add drywall or paneling to the corners and the ceiling to create a continuous look in the room.
- Make sure to feather out the mud so that it matches the other walls well.
Ta-Da! Open Concept! That’s it. It doesn’t take long to remove a wall once you know it is not load bearing. In a matter of minutes you can go from closed off to wide open.
Opening up the wall between the kitchen and living room was one of the best decisions we made in our first home!
I will share more posts about the individual projects throughout the month, so make sure to stay tuned! Follow me on Instagram for more details on all home projects @cassidysnapka!
For more about the kitchen, you can check out that project here.
