Kitchen Renovation

Hi friends! I need to know if I can tear this wall down? I want to renovate my kitchen to give it more space and take that wall out of the way and have an open floor plan, but that wall, Im just not so sure about it.
This is the view from the living room. See is just right there in the middle of everything! Pretty annoying.
And this is the other side of the wall(inside the kitchen)
  11 answers
  • Connie R Connie R on Apr 24, 2013
    My daughter had the exact same issue. They had a contractor come in and he told them they had to replace the wall with a beam. It was worth all the work, it looks great and gave them lots of room.
  • Carmen Y. Ocasio-Escobar Carmen Y. Ocasio-Escobar on Apr 24, 2013
    Was it hard to do? Expensive? Thanks for the comment! :)
  • Connie R Connie R on Apr 25, 2013
    I don't think it was that expensive. It was quite a bit of work, but they had someone in my son-in-laws family who knew how to do it.
  • Cyndi Moore Tippett Cyndi Moore Tippett on Apr 25, 2013
    We have taken out a wall between our kitchen and dining room. First you have to find out is the wall load bearing. If it is you will need to transfer the weight of the roof onto an engineered beam or put in columns to span the space. We put up headers and one center column because our wall was to long to span with a header and we didn't want to go through the expense of a engineered beam and paying someone to put it up. If you go into your attic space you can determine if the wall is load bearing by looking at the way the ceiling joists are running. If you are not comfortable with making that determination, you could have a DIYer friend tell you.
  • Carmen Y. Ocasio-Escobar Carmen Y. Ocasio-Escobar on Apr 26, 2013
    Thank you guys. I know is gonna take a while till Im able to do it, but when Im done Im gonna post pictures. Thank you! :)
  • Jeanette S Jeanette S on Apr 28, 2013
    If you have the talent, money and time to make this appear as though is was always one room...same flooring, same ceiling effect, etc., then go for it! Find some matching wood and take it all the way through on the floor! Otherwise, it will look patched!
  • Designs by BSB Designs by BSB on May 14, 2013
    warning.. from these photos 1) you cannot be 100% sure you can take it down. From my experience from evaluation of them.. Id so no, you cannot. The common rule in in home construction is that the ceiling joists run the shortest distance, so it is very likely that this wall holds a load. What is contradictory to this is that there are no headers on each open side - so either a) headers are buried to carry the load, or your home is built with full width trusses. So .. if you want a definitive answer - post pictures of the outside and up in the attic :)
  • Dermot McGingty Dermot McGingty on May 24, 2013
    Truly truly terrible, it is quite amazing how something can look so shoddy!!!
  • Pro Skill Construction Pro Skill Construction on Jul 11, 2013
    We agree with BeckySue - better safe than sorry! If it is load bearing and LVL can be used, but that's not a process you want to take lightly.
  • Carmen Y. Ocasio-Escobar Carmen Y. Ocasio-Escobar on Jul 11, 2013
    Good news! THe wall was not a supporting wall. And Im having a plumber this friday to move my stove gas line a couples feet to the right. I will post more pictures later :)
  • Kathy Henke Kathy Henke on Jan 08, 2014
    If it is a load-bearing wall, can you leave the main structure there and make that in island with columns on the sides? That would give support and open the space plus you could do higher on LR side and lower on the kitchen side. I have that in mine and have a bookcase on my dining room side.