So putting in a beam is fun

"Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs" (yowen) 07/18/2017 at 11:23 • Filed to: yowenkitchen

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So for weeks now I’ve been working on tearing out a wall and installing a beam in the wall that separated our kitchen and living room. Did I say fun? Kind of. It’s also been HARD work. Home reno shows make it look easy, I had no illusions of it being that easy, but damn, I’ve been working my ass off. Having the right tools helps though! And I really am enjoying learning all this construction stuff!

What you see here is the temporary support wall on the kitchen side and the removed wall with a beam installed to within about an inch of where it’ll end up.

Tonight I am adding in the second beam, I’m sandwiching (2) LVL beams that are 1.75" wide each. Once I have both up there and screwed together, I’ll be jacking them up the rest of the way so they are nice and snug to the floor joists.

After that, maybe by Wednesday, I’ll removing the temporary support wall, and then I’ll start working on remembering what the hell it was my next step is. Most likely cabinet tear-out and cabinet-install.

I hadn’t posted about this here before, but I’ll do some progress updates here and there!

benjrblant > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 11:28

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Are you using beam hangers or adding columns to support the LVL?

Quadradeuce > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 11:29

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I’ve done two of these, but I stripped everything down to the studs. Made it fairly simple. But in my case the plaster wasn’t salvageable, so stripping it was a forgone conclusion.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > benjrblant 07/18/2017 at 11:31

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I’ll be putting in two studs on either side to carry the beam.

benjrblant > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 11:35

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Looks good!

notsomethingstructural > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 11:49

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Looks pretty darn good.

Having the right tools is the most important thing when it comes to construction. Yes, it is more expensive to do that in many cases, but the amount of time you save is absurd. Good on you for building it right. People fuck things up when they try to cheap out, and it usually takes once or twice before they figure that out.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > notsomethingstructural 07/18/2017 at 11:52

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Haha once or twice with a beam, means a couple caved in houses, lol.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > Quadradeuce 07/18/2017 at 11:54

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Yeah, I had a plaster wall where that beam is now. That was a messy job, removing that! Then the amount of crap that was sitting on the top plate and inside the crown molding, it was a giant mess. I am gigantically impressed with my Ridgid Shopvac ($25, craigslist), I’ve run the filter ragged, I’ve run it for 10 hours straight and she’s still sucking!

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > benjrblant 07/18/2017 at 11:56

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Thanks! I did hours upon hours of research. And I quizzed a neighbor that had done a similar project (we are in townhouses). He only used a few 2x10's to support his load and all went well for him, but I decided it didn’t cost that much more to get the LVL’s.

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 12:03

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We had to do the same thing to the garage. It was kinda fun, though slightly lower stakes than what you’re doing.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 07/18/2017 at 12:05

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I like the quick support wall method you used. In my case I definitely needed a proper one, but yours looks like it went up nice and quickly.

Here’s another view of mine:

Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 12:13

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Nice! I went on the recommendation of “This Old House” with the 2x4s and ratchet straps and they worked brilliantly. Only problem we encountered was I ended up jacking up the ceiling a bit too much and now there is a small gap. I can see where your temp support would enable a lot more fine control, which would have been nice.

We also made the header outside the wall and then hammered it into place... which was sort of the opposite of fun when you picture two 2x10s plus some plywood, nails, and glue being help up by little more than hopes and dreams until we could get the jack studs in.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > Akio Ohtori - RIP Oppo 07/18/2017 at 12:17

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Haha, it seems no matter how you do it, getting something installed up above your head is never easy.

Yeah, I had fine control, but it definitely was a measure once, cut 1, 2 or 3 times to get them all to the right height. But hey, I had told up a 2nd story! And keep the ceiling at the exact same height, so I took my time building that wall, that’s for sure. I’m pretty sure without it, my house would cave in, so there’s a lot riding on it.

shop-teacher > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 12:30

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Looking good! Yeah, carpentry is hard work. I don’t have cable anymore, but when I did I always enjoyed people’s souls get crushed when they found out you actually can’t redo your entire kitchen in 17 hours with a budget of $122.88.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 12:41

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make sure you have the posts properly support. just sitting on the floor isn’t enough, they need something below them to transfer the weight to a footing/beam/foundation

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > shop-teacher 07/18/2017 at 13:02

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Haha so true! I spent 17 hours just planning the remodel, if not more!

I’m thinking my budget will end up somewhere between $10 and $12k.

Having this quoted by a general contractor came in at $30k+.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > OPPOsaurus WRX 07/18/2017 at 13:10

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Agreed, there is a well directly below the beam in the basement, I think i will add some 2x4's directly below where the posts will be though.

Little Black Coupe Turned Silver > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 13:23

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I did a similar job about a year ago now. Spent about 9 months completely renovating my house with my dad (and some of his friends and also a real contractor sometimes), including opening between the living room and kitchen into a slightly bigger opening. There is about a month of work between the first two and last two pictures, we had to rip out the kitchen floor.

shop-teacher > Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs 07/18/2017 at 13:34

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Yep! Those numbers sound about right.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > Little Black Coupe Turned Silver 07/18/2017 at 13:38

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very nice! Looks like the same type LVL beam.

It’s amazing how tough tearing out a bunch of plaster, a studwall is. Then removing or relocating anything that may have run through there adds a whole bunch more time.

Yowen - not necessarily not spaghetti and meatballs > shop-teacher 07/18/2017 at 13:39

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Haha and after all this, I’ll know which things are worth paying to have someone else do it. But I’m really glad I’m doing all of these things at least once in my life. I’m hoping if I do another one it won’t be quite as extensive of a renovation. We bought this house knowing that nothing in the kitchen was salvageable.