Open Up a Kitchen and Replace the Load Bearing Beam

This is the kitchen remodeling project I did a while ago. The kitchen was old and small so I decided to open it up. The two bookcases on both sides of the hall need to go so I can extend the kitchen all the way out.

Quickly after I removed some of the drywall materials, I realized the walls behind the bookcases were load bearing. If you take a closer look at the right picture below, you can easily tell a major load bearing beam probably 2×8 in the middle supported by 2 4x4s on the sides. All the 2nd floor joints were sitting on top of the beam and the wall. Based on the construction style, the difference between the lumber’s color and type, the current structure is definitely not the original design, apparently a previous owner did some modification and created the current opening.

The house will collapse without the load bearing beam, but widening the span is possible. The existing beam needs to be removed before installing a replacement beam. In order to support the 2nd floor structure during the beam replacement, two temporary supporting walls in parallel with the beam were framed up. Once the temporary walls were up, workers could start removing the original load bearing walls without working the structure integrity. The weight of the 2nd floor was transferred to the temporary walls during the work.

Before installing the temporary supporting wall

The new span is measured to be 18’ wide, so the engineer decided to use 6×14” PSL (Parallel Strand Lumber). If you look back at the original kitchen photos, the original drop beam reduced the clearance of the ceiling by a few inches due to its own width. If the new wider beam was still to be installed under the floor joints, it would further reduce the clearance by a few more inches. So the flush beam methods was used for connecting the floor joints so that the top of the new beam can be raised all the way to the upstairs’s sub-floor.

In order to make room for the flush beam, the worker trimmed floor joints to leave enough space for the new beam. The trimming needs to be very precise, just long enough to install the hangers.