Take the wall out, keep the house standing.
Silicon Valley Kitchen & Bath Co. removes walls and builds open-concept kitchens from our office in Campbell, serving the South Bay and the Bay Area. Most kitchen walls in local homes carry roof or ceiling load, so the work is structural: an engineer sizes a beam, we install it with posts and footings, reroute whatever was inside the wall, and patch the floor and ceiling across the old line. One design-build team handles the engineering, the permit and the construction.
CSLB License #975092 · Licensed since 2012 · 2272 Camden Avenue, Campbell
What's included
- —Load-bearing assessment of the wall
- —Engineered beam design and calculations
- —Steel or engineered lumber beam, flush or dropped
- —Posts, footings and temporary shoring
- —Rerouting ducts, plumbing, wiring and vents in the wall
- —Floor and ceiling patching across the old wall line
- —Kitchen layout redesigned for the open room
- —Permit, engineering and inspections
Which walls carry load
In the ranch and mid-century houses around the South Bay, the wall between the kitchen and the living or dining room usually sits under a ceiling joist splice or near the ridge line, which makes it load-bearing. Exterior walls always carry load. Walls running parallel to the joists often do not, but some are braced walls that resist earthquake movement, and those matter just as much in California. We do not guess from the floor plan. We open a section of ceiling, trace what the framing above is doing, and have an engineer confirm before any demolition.
Steel, lumber and where the beam hides
Once the wall comes out, something has to carry what it carried. A beam of engineered lumber, an LVL or a glulam for longer spans, handles most openings and is the common choice, but it is deep, so it either drops below the ceiling or the ceiling framing is cut and hung from it to keep the beam flush. Steel is shallower for the same span, which makes a flush ceiling easier, and it is heavier to set. The beam also needs posts at each end and footings under those posts, which on a raised floor means new piers in the crawlspace.
What was inside the wall
Walls are rarely empty. A kitchen wall often carries the supply and drain lines for the sink, the range circuit, a heating duct, the main plumbing vent that goes up through the roof, and switches for both rooms. Every one of those has to be rerouted before the opening closes, and the vent may need a new path through the ceiling. The floor is the other surprise: hardwood or tile stops at the old wall line, so new flooring has to be woven in or the whole floor refinished. Homeowners who plan only for the beam are caught out by this. We draw it from the start.
Questions we get
- Do you do open-concept kitchen remodels in Campbell and the South Bay?
- Yes. Our office is at 2272 Camden Avenue in Campbell, and we remove walls and build open-concept kitchens in Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, San Jose, Cupertino and across the Bay Area as part of our design-build kitchen remodeling. We hold California CSLB License #975092 and have been licensed since 2012.
- How do I know if the wall between my kitchen and living room is load-bearing?
- Usually you cannot tell from inside the room. Walls perpendicular to the ceiling joists, walls under a joist splice, and walls near the center of the house are the usual suspects, and in California some walls are shear walls even when they carry no vertical load. We open the ceiling to check and have an engineer confirm.
- Do I need a permit and an engineer to remove a kitchen wall?
- Yes to both when the wall carries load, and in most Bay Area cities yes to a permit even when it does not, since the wiring and plumbing inside it are being moved. A licensed engineer sizes the beam and posts; we handle the permit process with your city's building department and schedule the inspections.
- Will there be a beam showing in the ceiling?
- Only if you want one. A dropped beam is simpler and can be wrapped to read as a design feature; a flush beam sits inside the ceiling framing so the ceiling runs through uninterrupted. Ceiling height, joist direction and span decide which is practical in your house.
- How long does wall removal take?
- The structural work itself typically takes a few days to a week once the engineering and permit are in hand, but it is almost always part of a larger kitchen remodel, so the overall schedule follows the kitchen. Engineering and plan review add several weeks up front, and that varies by city.
Where we build
Based in Campbell and working from Napa to Carmel. These are the cities closest to our office.
- Campbell
- Los Gatos
- Saratoga
- San Jose
- Cupertino
- Monte Sereno
- Santa Clara
- Sunnyvale
- Los Altos
- Mountain View
- Palo Alto
- Menlo Park
From the Journal
- Open-Concept Kitchens: Is Removing That Wall Worth It?
- Do You Need a Permit to Remodel in the Bay Area?
- Remodeling an Eichler Kitchen in Sunnyvale
- Common Kitchen Remodel Problems in Older Bay Area Homes
Related specialties
Ready to build something that lasts?
One team handles design, permits, and build — from concept to finished space.