Open Concept Kitchens

Most of the houses we work in around Essex and Union County were built when kitchens were closed rooms at the back of the house. Whoever cooked was separated from everyone else, which is the single most common reason people want to remodel.

Removing or opening that wall genuinely transforms how a house lives. It is also the one part of a kitchen remodel where the consequences of doing it wrong are structural rather than cosmetic, so it is worth understanding what is involved.

First: is the wall carrying anything?

Non-bearing partitions are easy to remove and cost relatively little. Bearing walls carry the floor above, and sometimes the roof, and taking one out means replacing its function with a beam.

Indicators that a wall is bearing: it runs perpendicular to the direction of the joists above it; there is a wall, beam or column roughly beneath it in the basement; it sits near the middle of the house running the long dimension; it continues on the floor above.

None of those is definitive. Older houses have been altered, sometimes more than once, and a previous owner's work can put load somewhere unexpected. The reliable method is to look at joist direction from the basement or attic and trace the load path. In a house with a finished basement and a finished attic, that occasionally means opening a small inspection area.

The beam

When a bearing wall comes out, a beam takes its place. Sizing it is an engineering calculation based on the span, the tributary load it collects, and the material.

Engineered lumber, LVL or PSL, is what most residential jobs use. It is dimensionally stable, comes in long lengths, and can usually be carried in and assembled in place, which matters in a house with a narrow staircase.

Steel handles longer spans in less depth, which is what makes a flush installation possible where engineered lumber would need to hang too low. The trade-off is weight and access: a steel beam of any size is a genuine logistical problem to get into a kitchen.

The choice between a flush beam, installed within the ceiling joist depth so the ceiling stays flat, and a dropped beam hanging below, is partly aesthetic and partly what the numbers allow. Flush is cleaner and more work, because every joist has to be cut and hung off the new beam with hangers. Dropped is simpler and often looks intentional, defining the boundary between two spaces without closing them off.

The load path is the real work

The beam is the visible part. What it does is collect load along its length and deliver it to two points, and those two points now carry far more than any part of the old wall did.

Posts have to run from the beam down through the structure to something adequate. That usually means a post in the wall below, then a post in the basement, and sometimes a new concrete footing poured under that post because the existing slab is not rated to take a concentrated load.

This is the part of the project that surprises people. The kitchen is upstairs, but the work extends into the basement and occasionally into the ground. If the basement is finished, some of it comes apart. Planning for that up front is the difference between a smooth job and a bad week.

What else is inside that wall

A wall between a kitchen and a dining room is rarely empty. Expect some combination of electrical circuits feeding both rooms, a switch loop, plumbing supply lines, a heating pipe or duct, and in a house of a certain age, a plumbing vent stack running to the roof.

The vent stack is the one that changes plans. It cannot simply be removed; it has to be rerouted, which may mean running it inside a remaining wall section or a new chase. That is a normal solve, but it is a reason to open a small area and look before finalizing a design that assumes the whole wall disappears.

Radiators and baseboard heat also live on these walls. Removing the wall means relocating the heat, and in a house with hydronic baseboard that means rerouting pipe.

What you gain and what you give up

The gains are real: light travels through the house, whoever is cooking is part of the room, and a small kitchen borrows visual space from the dining room without gaining a square foot.

The losses are also real and are worth naming. You lose a wall, which in a small kitchen may have been carrying upper cabinets, a pantry or the range with its hood. You gain sound and smell transmission: the dishwasher is now audible from the sofa, and last night's fish is a shared experience. And a fully open kitchen is always on display, which some people love and others quietly regret.

This is why a partial opening is frequently the better answer. A wide cased opening or a pass-through with a counter gives most of the light and connection, keeps some wall for cabinets, shortens the beam span, and reduces the structural work substantially.

Permits, drawings and inspections

Structural work requires a construction permit under New Jersey's Uniform Construction Code, and your municipality will generally want a drawing sealed by a licensed engineer or architect showing the beam size, connections, posts and load path.

The building subcode official inspects the framing before it is covered. If plumbing or electrical is being moved, those subcodes have their own rough inspections. Nothing gets drywalled until the rough inspections pass. Requirements and fees vary by town, our service area pages link to each construction office.

How the work runs

1. Determine bearing status and trace the load path.
2. Engineer sizes the beam and specifies the posts and footing.
3. Permit application with sealed drawings.
4. Containment and protection, because plaster demolition is filthy.
5. Temporary shoring on both sides of the wall to carry the load while the wall is out.
6. Wall removal, utilities rerouted.
7. Beam set, joists hung or bearing on it, posts installed down to the footing.
8. Framing inspection.
9. Shoring removed, ceiling and walls closed, then the rest of the kitchen remodel proceeds normally.

Open concept work across our service area

Center-hall colonials in Maplewood, Montclair and Westfield are the classic candidates for this work, and postwar houses in Union and Livingston often open up more easily. See all service areas or return to kitchen remodeling.

Every town has its own kitchen remodeling page covering the housing there and what it means for a project. See the full service area.