Tear Down that Wall!

This house is our fourth home. In all three of our previous houses we tore down a wall in the kitchen. (I like open spaces.) So, I shouldn't have been surprised at the change when we took down the wall between the dining room and the kitchen, but each time I am amazed at the transformation!

Here's what it looks like after the wall was removed...still pretty raw but it made a small dining room and small kitchen look like one enormous room!

This is what we started out with...

That wall made both rooms feel boxy and small.

The walls in our house are plaster--much messier than taking down drywall. There was white plaster dust everywhere.

 Here's the view from the kitchen with some of the wall down.

Here's what it looked like afterwards...I forgot what we did for dinner that night!

What do you do with all that stuff? It wouldn't fit in our trash can. 

The solution was Bagster.

Here's how it works. Pick up a bag (I bought ours from Home Depot) open it up, put it on the end of the driveway and fill it.

After it's filled, call Bagster for a pick up.

When the truck arrived, everyone working at my house stopped what they were doing. We were mesmerized watching the bag being lifted up and dropped into the truck!

Now we had one large room but two doorways which didn't make any sense.

Our first choice was to remove the wall in the center and open the entire doorway. Our carpenter explained this would entail installing a steel header that was very expensive, so we opted for plan B.

Instead, he closed off the kitchen doorway, which gave us more wall space and created the perfect spot for the refrigerator.  Then he enlarged the other doorway four feet wide which still gives a nice open feel to the room. Next step: floors!