removing/redesigning load bearing wall

[amk]

The back of our house was added onto by previous owners. The family room and kitchen were expanded. We like family room and the way the addition was done, but not so much with kitchen. The new and old kitchen are connected by 2 archways with a load bearing wall in the middle- the wall is about 4 feet long. We would like to look into taking out the wall and replacing with 2 columns (one on each side of where wall is now) with an island built within the columns- does this sound like it would even be an option? Are there any other possibilities- we want to make the kitchen more unified; it looks too seperated and choppy with this wall right in the middle of the room.

Thanks
Amy

I posted here with a wood staining question and the project turned out great, so I'm hoping I can get some good responses on this.

[David]

It's a loadbearing wall. So, technically, you can't remove it. However, I'm pretty sure you can install a header at the top of the wall for the whole 4' span and support that header with structural columns on each end. Hopefully Joe or Don or someone else can confirm this.

[CThomp]

How far will the new span be?

[David]

I assume the span would be 4', since Amy said the wall is four feet and they want to replace it with columns on each side of where wall currently exists.

[CThomp]

Nevermind...I think I'm visualizing this a little better now. It could work.

[giddonah]

I was watching "House Ladder" and some 24yr old kid was working on flipping a house and wanted to widen a door way. He and his friend took a sawzall to one side and the top plate cracked. They stopped right away and braced it with a 2x4. They were lucky they didn't bring the place down. I thought it was funny. You know, because it wasn't *my* house ;)

Anyway, the moral is to have this done right. Yes, this is definitely a possibility. Not even an expensive proposition, it just needs to be done right.

[Don_P]

Quite doable (is that a real word?).
I'm assuming there is a 2nd floor and roof above in the original house bearing on this as well as the additions roof also bearing on the former back wall that now has the archways separated by a 4' wall?

A beam of some dimension can span the entire thing or a smaller beam can span it with columns. After that it comes down to whether the beam needed fits within the available opening while still giving required or desired headroom.

LVL's ,kinda like plywood beams, can be made in long lengths and quite deep to handle considerable loads. At loads greater than that, I beams can be installed. Remember the beam's end loads and column loads just became concentrated under those bearing points, that must be followed to the bottom of the house.

This is a job for a pro... just ask my sister in law :)