Open floor plan remodeling

The assessment records the walls you want gone and what sits above and below them: the floor, the ceiling, the attic and the foundation. Design follows, and you keep the drawings. Every choice, and the reason for it, goes into your private online workspace.

Three ways to open up a room

How a wall comes out

You make the choices.

• Which walls come out, and how wide the opening is
• A flush beam hidden in the ceiling, or a dropped beam you can see
• Posts only at the ends of the beam, or one partway across
• How a dropped beam is finished
• Where the air returns go
• Lights in the new ceiling
• One floor running through the whole room
• A new kitchen at the same time

Living at home while a wall comes out

That turns on how much of the house the work reaches. With a smaller opening, we may be able to work around your household while you stay. A large one may mean moving out for a while. Which one yours is gets settled for each project. Living through a renovation covers how the rest of the house stays usable.

Damage behind the wall is priced as an allowance.

Rot or insect damage can hide inside a wall, or in the floor framing under it. Damage that only shows once the wall is open is carried as an allowance in the price.

A house built before 1978

The federal lead rule names taking out walls as renovation. So in a house built before 1978, the job falls under North Carolina's lead-safe renovation rules. On an older house, an NC-accredited inspector tests the joint compound, ceiling texture and old flooring for asbestos before the wall comes down.

When the whole house is changing

An open plan is often one part of a bigger change. When the layout, the systems and the finishes all change at once, see whole-house renovation for how that job is planned.

Code in force

2018 North Carolina Residential Code. New work meets the rules for a new house. It may not make the house unsafe or hurt how it performs (Section R102.7.1).

Design wind speed

Brunswick and New Hanover: 140 mph west of US 17, 150 mph east of it. Pender: 130 mph, except Topsail Township, at 140 west of the Intracoastal Waterway and 150 east (Table R301.2(4)).

A bearing wall

A building permit at any cost (General Statute 160D-1110).

Wiring, pipes and ducts in the wall

Moving them changes their design, so each takes its trade permit at any cost (General Statute 160D-1110).

A wide opening

A beam past the reach of the code's span tables is engineered (Section R301.1.3).

Smoke alarms

A job that needs a building permit brings smoke alarms up to new-house placement. Once a wall is opened to its framing, they are linked so that one sets off all (Section R314).

Inside a historic district

The commission reviews the outside. The layout inside is yours (General Statute 160D-947).

A bearing wall takes a permit at any price.

Under state law, a job of $40,000 or less, done to code, can skip the building permit in some cases. Taking out a bearing wall never qualifies, because it changes load-bearing structure. A wall that carries no load can qualify, if nothing inside it moves. Walls between rooms usually hold outlets and switches, and often a duct or a pipe. Moving any of them is a change in design, and it takes a permit at any cost. New Hanover County's permit guide lists interior structural changes to a wall as needing a building permit.

Where the code's tables stop, an engineer takes over.

The code's span tables size beams built up from ordinary lumber over modest openings. Past those tables, the beam is designed to accepted engineering practice (Section R301.1.3). That design also has to work with the framing around it.

Inside a historic district, the layout is yours.

A historic preservation commission reviews the outside of a house. State law leaves the inside arrangement to you, except in a landmark whose owner agreed to interior review. A window moved or added along the way is exterior work, and it needs a certificate of appropriateness first. Southport and Wilmington each have a Historic Preservation Commission that issues them.

In a flood zone

In a mapped flood zone, an open floor plan counts toward your town's 50 percent rule, from the demolition to the finishes. Inside walls count, bearing or not.

What sits on the wall

A bearing wall holds up joists or rafters that land on it from above. The code frames it like an outside wall, with a doubled plate along its top. A partition can be lighter, capped with a single plate. Older houses can break those patterns. On some older home places around Atkinson, additions built decades apart change what each wall carries. So the framing above and below the wall settles it. Which wall would you take out, and what sits above it: a second floor, an attic or the roof?

The ceiling may be tying the roof together.

Ceiling joists often meet and lap over an inside wall. Where they run the same way as the rafters, the code has them joined there. That ties the roof's two sides together across the house (Section R802.3.1). A beam set up into the ceiling has to keep that tie whole. Where the tie is lost, the ridge is held up by a beam designed to accepted engineering practice.

A truss that rests on the wall needs an engineer.

Many roofs are framed with trusses, and each truss's drawings list where it bears. Some trusses rest on an inside wall partway across. We take out a wall a truss bears on, and that work must be engineered. The code bars cutting or altering any part of a truss without a registered design professional's approval (Section R802.10.4).

Inside walls help brace the house.

All three counties sit at a design wind speed of 130 mph or more. Under the code's bracing rules, an inside wall finished with drywall can count toward the bracing a house needs (Section R602.10.3). So taking one out can remove bracing the house was counting on. The new plan makes it up, to the code's bracing rules or an engineer's design. Coastal durability covers how we build for wind on this coast.

Tied down from the roof to the foundation.

In the 140 and 150 mph zones, the code wants the roof tied down in one unbroken chain to the footings (Section R4508.1). In the 130 mph zone, the chain runs to the foundation. Where the old wall was part of that chain, the beam and its posts take its place in it.

You choose whether the beam shows.

A flush beam sits up inside the ceiling, and the joists hang from its sides on metal hangers. The ceiling then runs flat across the old wall line. A dropped beam hangs below the ceiling, and the joists rest on top of it. The code lets a beam hang no lower than 6 feet 4 inches above the floor (Section R305.1). The span and the joists above decide which one works, along with the look you want. Would you rather see the beam, or have it disappear into the ceiling?

Posts land on footings sized for them.

A long beam hands its load to the posts that hold it up. Each post carries that load down to a footing sized for it, and a new footing goes in where the old one falls short. The code sizes a footing under a post by the load it carries and the soil below (Section R403.1.1). Each post is held at its top and bottom so it cannot shift (Section R407.3). Our article on footings and soil bearing shows how a footing is sized.

East of the Intracoastal Waterway, salt air sets the hardware. A post base or strap outside the heated rooms, as in a crawl space, is hot-dip galvanized or an approved equal (Section R4606.1).

Wires, pipes and ducts get new paths.

Each one moves under its own trade permit, and new wiring meets the North Carolina Electrical Code. An engineered beam takes no holes unless its maker or a registered design professional allows them (Section R502.8.2). So the new runs are planned around the beam.

Heating and cooling for one open room

Merging rooms changes how air moves through the house. Moved ducts are laid out to the code's design method (Section M1601.1) and sealed. Each return takes back no more air than its room is sent (Section M1602.2). Where the equipment is replaced, it is sized to a load calculation (Section M1401.3). HVAC design covers why a right-sized system keeps the air dry.

One room for light and air

Open at least half the wall between two rooms, and the code counts them as one room for light and air (Section R303.2). The opening also has to meet a minimum size. So a dining room without a window can share the living room's windows.

The floor is brought level where the wall stood.

Where the wall stood, the floor is left with a gap, sometimes at two heights or in two materials. The ceiling carries a scar too. Both are patched, and the floor is brought level across the old wall line before the finishes go on. A sag found once the floor is open is carried as an allowance in the price.