Should there be a breakfast bar here? Costly??

Question

The wall with the stove in it.  I don't believe it is load bearing.  It leads to the living room (living room is 23x17, kitchen is 12x24).  I'm thinking of knocking out the upper half of this wall and creating a breakfast bar.  This would open up the space between the two rooms.  I would keep the wall between the ceiling and the header in the doorway.

I would like the breakfast bar to be higher than the counter so I could use bar stools.

What sorts of issues could I run into by doing this myself?  How much could it cost?

Pretty vague question I know, I'm just looking for best guesses and thoughts.

Thanks a bunch!

Glenn J. · Answer

I'm somewhat of an admitted amateur with construction, so I don't know if this will help you. But the wall oven is going to have a dedicated 220v circuit going directly to the breaker box, so the wire may be easily identifiable if it were run, lets say, up into the attic. You could get up there, find the top plate of the wall and see if the wire is coming out of it. You should also be able to determine if its a load bearing wall while you're up there.

Karen Margrave · Answer

OK you don't mean the wall where the stove is, you mean the wall where the oven is! (Men!)  LOL .... Check out that link I put in and piddle around with different layouts. You might consider a freestanding stove/oven so you take less space. Also, where does the refrigerator go? You can also go onto some of the cabinet sites like kraftmaid or ? and see different layouts. If you have a IKEA closeby, go check out cabinets, they're very affordable.

Ethan Peyton · Answer

I know it has electrical coming to it because of the oven obviously.  What I don't know it how it is run to it...ceiling, floor....I'm just not sure.

I have house under contract, but I can't do anything to it yet.

Ethan Peyton · Answer

@Pat L.

I believe I will be adding an island as well.

I don't want to completely blow out the wall because honestly the two spaces together are just too damn big....

Pat L. · Answer

if you find a header in the top your OK regardless of it being a LBW

I ripped it out....& added the island instead of a b/bar & they loved it

Karen Margrave · Answer

This design tool may help you!  It appears the stove is to the right in the picture, and we can't see it good enough to comment. Are you SURE it's not a load bearing wall? If you knock out the wall, opening it to the living room, what is going to happen to the stove?  Maybe you could draw a floor plan of both rooms and put on here.

As to costs, it will depend on what needs to be done, rewire stove or ? , is there plumbing? what's in the wall?

Rob K. · Answer

Even if that wall is load bearng, you could take it out and support it with a header. I would build a temporary wall to hold the ceiling up before you remove that wall, then put in the header, then remove the temporary wall.

The materilas that you need (drywall and lumber) are very cheap.