What we do

Opening Up a Closed Kitchen

Going from a closed kitchen to an open one is the single most transformative change available in an older house, and the one most likely to involve structure, drawings and an engineer.

Load-bearing or not is the first question

A partition wall carries only itself and can usually come out simply. A bearing wall carries the structure above it, and removing one means replacing its capacity with a beam and a path for that load to reach the foundation. Which kind you have is not reliably answered by tapping it — it is answered by looking at what runs above and below, and often by an engineer.

This is where drawings become unavoidable

Kansas City, Missouri's process for an interior remodel asks for a written scope-of-work letter with existing and proposed floor plans. A wall removal is exactly the change those proposed plans exist to show. Kansas City, Kansas requires scaled drawings on every residential application. If your project includes taking a wall out, budget for documentation as a real line item.

What else is usually in the wall

Wiring, plumbing and ducting frequently run through the wall you want gone, and rerouting them is separately licensed work in this metro — Johnson County's remodeling licence classes do not cover electrical, plumbing or mechanical work. A quote that treats the wall as pure carpentry may be missing the trades that make it possible.