Carol Fletcher
Hackensack Record

Open floor plans, with one room flowing seamlessly into another, have been de rigueur in new-home construction for nearly a decade. But how do you take your gridlike Cape or boring center-hall Colonial and turn it into one of these?
Renovate to liberate - that’s been the popular way to convert isolated rooms and cramped spaces to open, light-filled places.

For years, homeowners have been removing walls to create large spaces for entertaining and family time.

“Anything to provide areas for interaction amongst the family members. That’s what’s in right now,” said Renee Rewiski, president of the National Association of the Remodeling Industry and editor/publisher of Remodeling News.

Architects and contractors say there’s no limit to what can be done. But there are factors that can affect cost and aesthetics, and ways to predict problems.

Foremost when envisioning an open floor plan is hiring an architect to determine which walls carry the weight of whatever is above and how to redistribute it. If the walls you want to remove are load-bearing, that must be addressed in the new design.

A system of wood or steel beams needs to be designed to handle the weight and avoid possible structural problems, said architect Richard A. Bouchard. “Maybe you can’t shut doors on the second floor, or the floor upstairs now has a slope to it. Those things are hard to correct, so you really have to design these beams correctly the first time.”

To obtain permits, homeowners typically need to file architectural plans with local building departments. Architects can sign plans, but not contractors, leaving the homeowner to take responsibility.

Easy-open styles. Any wood-frame house can be opened up, said contractor Tim Wallace of Wall Co., in River Edge, N.J. But an open floor plan that includes an addition can be more challenging with certain house styles, such as Tudors that have exterior brick walls with mortar and unusual angles.

Bouchard said his current project, a rancher, is particularly easy to open up. “By reconfiguring the whole roof, we were able to eliminate the need for a [load-bearing] beam,” he said, “because it was a ranch and had nothing above.”

With their large floor plans that allow for larger rooms, Colonials are also considered easy.

“It depends on the type of home and how much room are you looking for,” said Tommy McDevitt, president of McDevitt Construction & Remodeling in Lincoln Park, N.J. “And what kind of openness.”

Without a doubt, he said, split-levels are the most difficult because the rooms people want to connect are on different floors. About all that can come down are the walls between kitchens and living rooms, he said.

More room, higher cost. As a general rule of thumb for such remodels, “the bigger it gets, the more expensive it gets,” McDevitt said. “Most people want more room, not just an open floor plan.”

His renovation projects have ranged from $10,000 to $200,000, McDevitt said. The price of opening up one room and taking down a non-load-bearing wall, or one that just divides two rooms: $3,000.

Removing load-bearing walls means replacing them with new weight-loading beam configurations. The more you want to hide them, such as in the ceiling above, the more expensive the work becomes, McDevitt said.

The cost of enlarging kitchens and family rooms is about $98,000, he said, but it depends on what the homeowner wants.

What do you really want? Often the desire for an expanded, more-open kitchen is to fit in new, luxurious extras such as wine coolers, warming or cooling drawers, and islands. That can be a catalyst for adding eating areas and family rooms.

Richard and Barbara Daidone’s old cramped kitchen didn’t fit Barbara’s dream. Plus, getting to the kitchen required going through an unused room.

Wallace worked with an architect to remove six walls, move a half-bath, convert the unused room into the main kitchen area, and take down the wall dividing it from the family room. They raised ceilings, opened arches in the wall above a second work area so it now has a view of the dining room, and redid the laundry room.

The eight-month project revealed significant, costly problems that needed correcting, such as rot in walls and floors that required rebuilding the laundry room, the upstairs bath, and the staircase.

Those issues, plus costly cabinets, high-end appliances, and other aesthetic decisions, pushed the cost to “well over $200,000,” Barbara Daidone said - significantly higher than their original budget of $150,000.

But the result is a showcase of a main floor that is organized, easy to walk through, and open. “Everybody loves it, it’s the flow,” she said. “It’s always happy hour.”

You can create the illusion of open space without additions, bump-outs or knocking down walls, Wallace said. One way is to remove the soffits, closed areas that usually hide plumbing, vent or waste lines from the floor above. The pipes can be relocated.

“There are lots of ways to make it feel more spacious,” he said, “. . . by using space there better.”