Open Plan Living Room?
We are thinking of removing the wall between the front room and hall way so that it is open plan at the front of the house, but a friend says that there is a steel support behind front room door .
Please help if you if that’s right or wrong .
Thanks,
Hi, no there is no steel support in the wall between the living room and the hallway, so it can safely be removed. The only steel elements in the internal walls of the house are in the middle wall (wall between living room/dining room, living room/kitchen and hall/kitchen). There is a steel horizontal steel beam in the top of it just below ceiling level, a vertical steel stanchion right up against the party wall, one about half way between the living room/dining room doorway and the chimney flue and another in the living room/kitchen/hall corner.
I would not like to have the stairway going into the living room and have to go through the living room to get to the kitchen, but that’s personal preference and there’s no structural reason not to. Also it may make keeping heat in downstairs more difficult as the warm air will rise upstairs in winter without being able to keep it in by closing the door.
Ed