Can I cut a piece of a load bearing wall to open up my space a little?

Sue...Yes you can do that as long as you beef up the load bearing areas (such as adding a window). Good luck!

For anything load bearing it is best (and often required by codes) to consult and engineer. I am all for saving money by doing stuff myself, but when it comes to load bearing, you can really mess up your house if you don't know what you're doing - especially if you have a two story house. Plus, it could fail inspection when you go to sell it.

Chances are good that you would need to install a pretty significant beam across the open stretch, but I don't begin to know what the building codes in your area require in terms of support posts, footers under the support posts, size of the beam needed, etc.

You still might well be able to do it yourself, but you need the advice of a professional who is familiar with building codes in your area.

When my son was remodeling his house he actually found the kitchen wall that had a 5' x 5' square cut out of it, an opening where the kitchen looked into the dining room, had been there on a load bearing wall since the 1950's with no problems. He only had to reinforce it when he was taking out that wall completely. You should be fine :)

I agree about building codes, etc. But, if you are only removing the sheetrock between the supports I don't know how it would interfere with the actual supports. But, I'm not an engineer so speak with your local building code and inspector to ask this safety issue.

Thank you for all the insights !