Removing almost any wall can make the floor of a house look dramatically different. If it’s a wall connected to the kitchen, this will certainly be the case. People will almost always spend a disproportionate amount of time in the kitchens of their homes, even if they don’t cook food from scratch. They’ll still want to get something to drink or go to the refrigerator looking for something that’s readily available to eat. When there’s no wall in the way, people might be able to do so more fluidly.
Closed Kitchens
Many individuals remove one or more of the walls surrounding their kitchens to make those kitchens more open. They won’t necessarily need to remove both walls if more than one wall is present. If just one wall separates the house’s kitchen from other rooms on the exact same floor, people will already more or less have an open concept kitchen after taking that wall away completely. They may not have to make any other changes to get a kitchen that has that sort of overall design.
People who want to make their homes larger in general usually just need to add an extra room. Making a specific room significantly bigger can be more challenging, however. People are changing an existing structure in these situations, rather than just adding to a larger one.
It only takes a few walls to make a simple room. Subtracting one of these walls can be enough to take a room and simply make it part of a larger room. People usually won’t be able to enlarge their kitchens in any other way. It might be possible in some homes for people to add a wall to a kitchen that expands the area, assuming they can more or less take some of the space from another room in the process.
That won’t be an option in every home, however, and some people want kitchens that are both open and large. However, they’ll need to make sure that a given wall actually can be successfully removed.
Load Bearing Walls
People won’t always be able to easily remove the walls of their kitchens. Some of the walls of kitchens are specifically load-bearing walls, and some of them are not. Home remodeling professionals can determine whether or not this is the case for any given kitchen wall.
The people who want to get rid of their load-bearing walls still do have options. However, making any changes to a load-bearing wall will still make things more complicated than they would be otherwise. Homes need to have load-bearing walls, or the basic structure of the house itself will be significantly less stable.
A house may not necessarily collapse without a specific load-bearing wall, but the ceiling could still start to sag. The drywall of the house will also usually become damaged under these circumstances. Even the floors can become noticeably uneven. The doors might suddenly become harder to close and open. These sorts of houses can become much more vulnerable to other forms of long-term damage as well. A house certainly can eventually crumble and fail to support itself.
Still, it might be possible for remodeling experts to find new ways to support the full load that the current wall is now carrying. They might not be able to do so in all households, and they’ll probably have to build some additional structures to make this happen. However, some of the people who want to get open concept kitchens put into place will be interested in making other substantial changes to their existing homes, and experts could give them new ideas at this stage.