Hello All-
In the midst of a kitchen and bath reno...
Opened up some walls connecting kitchen to family room to allow kitchen to "flow" better into that room. Family room is an addition added to back corner of original house structure by prev owner.
In a perfect world, I would choose to remove the vertical corner beam you see in the photos entirely, transferring the load to left and right by about three feet on each side. But I think we've decided to compromise and simply box in the beam with finishing trim, etc, creating a free-standing post with passageway on either side.
You can see where this is leading... when I opened up the wall I found the diagonal "buttress" beam you see in the pictures. Goes from about 30" high down to floor level. As visible in the other picture, there originally was another one of these "buttress" supports 90 degrees to the existing one, but all that is left of it now is the empty slot it once resided in.
My questions: what is it (the diagonal brace), what purpose does (did) it serve, and is it a big deal if I remove it?
Secondly, you will see in the final pictures that it appears that the main vertical beam is resting upon a similar beam 9-10" from floor level. There is no visible sign of them being held together with any sort of connector or fastener... might the upper just be lying on the lower solely through its sheer weight? Or does anyone suspect, as I do, that there may be some sort of vertical dowel/peg between them? (see pic of type of peg I am referring to on diagonal brace)
Should I tie the two together with some sort of steel plates or something?
By the way, the diagonal brace peg has some play to it. I could slide it out if I chose to, leading me to believe there is not much load on the brace.
Thoughts??
THANKS!
In the midst of a kitchen and bath reno...
Opened up some walls connecting kitchen to family room to allow kitchen to "flow" better into that room. Family room is an addition added to back corner of original house structure by prev owner.
In a perfect world, I would choose to remove the vertical corner beam you see in the photos entirely, transferring the load to left and right by about three feet on each side. But I think we've decided to compromise and simply box in the beam with finishing trim, etc, creating a free-standing post with passageway on either side.
You can see where this is leading... when I opened up the wall I found the diagonal "buttress" beam you see in the pictures. Goes from about 30" high down to floor level. As visible in the other picture, there originally was another one of these "buttress" supports 90 degrees to the existing one, but all that is left of it now is the empty slot it once resided in.
My questions: what is it (the diagonal brace), what purpose does (did) it serve, and is it a big deal if I remove it?
Secondly, you will see in the final pictures that it appears that the main vertical beam is resting upon a similar beam 9-10" from floor level. There is no visible sign of them being held together with any sort of connector or fastener... might the upper just be lying on the lower solely through its sheer weight? Or does anyone suspect, as I do, that there may be some sort of vertical dowel/peg between them? (see pic of type of peg I am referring to on diagonal brace)
Should I tie the two together with some sort of steel plates or something?
By the way, the diagonal brace peg has some play to it. I could slide it out if I chose to, leading me to believe there is not much load on the brace.
Thoughts??
THANKS!