Kitchen Canvas

The very first time we toured the house we dreamed of a great kitchen made up of the existing kitchen, breakfast nook, and laundry room combined. And one of our first demolition project after buying the house was taking down the wall between the breakfast nook and the laundry room to jump start our vision. However, the wall between the kitchen and the other two rooms was a load bearing wall, which would require a solid beam to be installed. That's when we called in the experts. Several of them came by and gave us their opinion. But it was a local contractor with a unique welding experience who impressed us the most. He can build an entire house using steel beams only. And what's more solid than a steel beam to replace our load bearing wall? Probably nothing. Sure there are some LVL beams made of compressed wood chips that are extremely solid, but they tend to be very bulky compared to a steel beam.

Breakfast Nook

Laundry Room

Kitchen

Two Temporary Support Walls

Once we reached an agreement with our contractor, we proceeded with building two temporary walls: one on each side of the existing wall. The reason is simple. The second floor joists resting on the wall above were joined at this particular point. This means one joist ended and another one started right above the wall. So we needed to support the joists on either side of the wall to prevent the ceiling from collapsing. Once these two walls were in place, we nervously used the reciprocating saw and cut down the load bearing wall one stud at a time. And luckily we did everything right and nothing moved. Not even a settling crack upstairs.




Once the wall was down, we moved our efforts in the basement with the help of another contractor and friend. We had to ensure the beam could be supported all the way down into the foundation of the house. We couldn't even rely on the kitchen floor to rest the future columns that will support the beam. In fact, we had to cut holes through the kitchen floor to make room for the columns. These columns needed to rest on a concrete foundation of at least 12" deep in the basement. We drilled test holes in the basement floor and were shocked to discover that it was deeper than 12" already. Our drill bit was longer than 12" and did not reach the bottom of the basement floor. That was a very good news. However, the other end of the beam lined up with a dirt floor. So there we had to dig and pour a proper foundation to receive the second column.

New foundation for second column

 

Over 12" of concrete floor

Steel column in the basement

Pressure treated wood added

With the wall gone and the concrete pads ready, the time had come for the metal beam to be delivered. And what a mammoth it was weighing over 500 lbs and measuring 14" high and just shy of 20' long. The beam was first outfitted with pressure treated wood at the top and at the bottom for creating nailing surfaces that will be needed later on when we are ready to dress it up. Then it was hoisted up close to the ceiling and 2X4 crosspieces were nailed between the two temporary walls to hold it in place. The goal was just to get it close at this point. The ceiling had to be leveled as much as possible before determining the final resting place of the beam. So a giant rotating laser was used to obtain several measurements across the room. Two 20 ton bottle jacks helped push the beam in its final place and we checked the level reading one last time.

Hoisting the beam

Cross-pieces holding the beam

Leveling the ceiling and beam

The final step was to cut the supporting columns to length. In fact, each column was made of two columns welded together using a metal plate in between.

Welding the column to its plate

And voila the beam is in place properly supported all the way to the basement without any pressure on the kitchen floor. The result is a new kitchen canvas with approximately 400 SF. I like the word canvas in this case because we had no idea how to lay the kitchen within the space. It is like having the white page syndrome for a college paper. Sure, we had lots of ideas, but with so many options, so much space, and very few constraints, where does one start? We had designed and remodeled 3 other kitchens before this one, but they were all such small spaces in comparison. We became very good at optimizing space and using every inch, but this kitchen project will push us out of our comfort zone. Of course it is a good problem to have and we're not complaining.

Beam resting in its final place