West University

Kitchen opened to the back of the house

A load-bearing wall removed and carried on a flush beam, so the ceiling reads as one plane instead of announcing where the wall used to be.

Property

Single-family house

Age

Built 1948, extended 1996

On site

Four months

Size

480 sq ft of works

What was there

Fig. 01 — Galley kitchen, closed to the family room

A galley kitchen closed off from the family room by a wall the owners had been told, twice, was not structural. It was. It carried the ceiling joists for the whole rear half of the house, and a previous renovation had already cut two joists through it to run a duct.

The 1996 extension had left the kitchen with an exterior wall that was no longer exterior, still insulated and still carrying its original cladding behind the plasterboard.

What the owners wanted

One connected space across the back of the house.

Keep the ceiling flat — the owners had seen too many jobs where a dropped bulkhead marks the old wall line forever.

Do it in one summer, with the family staying in the house.

Fig. 02 — One space across the back of the house — West University

The design problem

A flush beam was the only way to keep the ceiling continuous, and a flush beam has to be carried down to something. That meant new posts inside existing walls and a new pad footing at one end, which is a much larger job than the cosmetic one the owners had budgeted for.

We priced both options and showed them the dropped-bulkhead version honestly, because it was less than half the cost. They chose the flush beam knowing exactly what it bought.

The build problem

Two joists had already been cut. They had to be sistered and re-supported before anything else could be touched, which moved a week of work to the front of the schedule.

The family stayed throughout. A temporary kitchen went into the dining room on day one, and the work area was sealed under negative pressure for the full four months.

Flush beam set and posts carried down

What we did

A flush LVL beam concealed in the ceiling depth, carried on new posts inside the flanking walls and a new pad footing at the exterior end.

The redundant exterior wall was opened, cleared and rebuilt as an interior partition, which recovered four inches of floor width across the whole run.

Ceiling plane continuous end to end — nothing in the finished room says where the wall was.

West University

During the build

Fig. 04 — Cut joists exposed, before sistering

Fig. 05 — Flush beam set and posts carried down

Materials

Flush LVL beam
Quarter-sawn oak cabinetry
Honed stone worktops

Worked with

Structural engineer