Background
Many homes are originally constructed with floorplans that create distinct spaces — a separate dining room, living room and family room, for example. This was common practice for decades, but lately open floorplans have become more attractive to homeowners, allowing homeowners to easily flow from one space to another.
That means there are a lot of unnecessary, unwanted walls out there. Among the most popular areas to remove walls is the kitchen and dining area. After all, who wants to wash dishes in a room by themselves while others migrate to adjacent rooms?
And, let’s be honest, how many families actively use their separate dining room on a daily basis? Most families use it just a few times a year for holidays and special occasions, right?
That’s how the Hackney family felt, so they asked if we could remove the wall between their kitchen and dining room to pull the spaces together, open the views and make more effective daily use of their space.
The Challenge
In The Lifestyle Group’s 21 years of existence, there’s never been a wall we haven’t been able to remove!
But it’s important for homeowners to retain realistic expectations when it comes to wall removal projects — and this project is the perfect example why. Upon removing the drywall, it immediately became clear this was more than just a framing and drywall project. There were two heating ducts, two water lines and a handful of electrical wires that would need to be rerouted and dealt with.
Enter The Lifestyle Group
We had upfront, honest conversations with the client and began the process of adapting on the fly. In this case, that meant inviting heating and cooling experts to give us their recommendation, then adjusting our approach to what they needed.
We constructed a new bulkhead to give them an alternate path for the ductwork, which let us maximize the width of the opening.
The clients can now make use of their dining room on a daily basis as it feels like an extension of the kitchen space — and the views from the kitchen into the front of the home have expanded greatly!
Conclusion
As you contemplate the removal of a wall in your home, use this example as a classic “What if?” scenario.
What will we do if we find a bunch of unwanted mechanicals in your wall? What if we have to take a path like on this project to resolve the issues? Will you be happy?
In our humble opinion, this project still turned out very much as originally planned visually, with the kitchen and dining room spaces being pulled together and the bulkhead disappearing once the wall was painted. In the end, the client was thrilled — and that’s what matters most!