Layout Changes, Wall Removal & Islands · Waterloo

Kitchen Layout Changes, Wall Removal and Islands in Waterloo

Opening up a kitchen is the change people want most and understand least. The wall is either carrying load or it is not, and that answer changes the budget more than any finish you pick.

Most kitchen calls from older Waterloo houses include the same sentence: we want to open it up. It is the right instinct. A closed kitchen is what holds most pre-war houses and 1960s backsplits back, and connecting it to the next room changes how the whole main floor works.

It is also the part of a kitchen job with the widest price range, because it depends on what the wall is doing and what is running through it.

Load-bearing or not

A partition wall holds itself up. A load-bearing wall holds up the floor or roof above it. Removing one means something else has to take that load, usually an engineered beam with posts at each end, and the load has to be carried down to something that can take it. That often means work in the basement below, not just the kitchen ceiling.

That work generally needs a building permit and a structural design from someone qualified to produce it. It falls under Ontario's Building Code. Inside the city the permit is issued by the City of Waterloo. In Elmira, St. Jacobs, Conestogo or Bloomingdale it is the Township of Woolwich, and in Wellesley the Township of Wellesley. No wall comes out on a guess.

A quick early read: walls running across the floor joists above are more likely to be carrying load than walls running parallel to them. In practice we open a small area of ceiling during the quote, because a guess from downstairs is how people get a bad number in week two.

What is in the wall, by house type

Pre-war houses in Uptown and Mary-Allen. The kitchen-to-dining wall is often structural, sometimes has an old chimney chase near it, and nearly always has wiring. The plaster around it will need patching over a wider area than the wall itself, and the floors have to be woven in where the wall plate was.

Backsplits and bungalows in Lincoln Village, Colonial Acres, Lakeshore and Westmount. The wall beside the kitchen often has the stair to the upper level on the other side, or the heat run to the bedrooms. Moving a duct is ordinary work. Moving a stair is not, and a good design works with it rather than against it. A half-wall with a counter cap, or a wide opening instead of full removal, is sometimes the better answer here.

1980s and 90s two-storeys in Beechwood, Columbia Forest and Laurelwood. The wall between the kitchen and the formal dining room is sometimes a partition and sometimes carries the second floor. The common plan is to open that wall and turn the dinette into an island with seating. These basements are usually accessible, so running plumbing to an island is more straightforward than in older houses.

Soffits and the light box

A soffit over the upper cabinets makes a small kitchen feel low. Taking it out and running cabinets to the ceiling is one of the best-value changes in a 1960s or 70s kitchen. What decides the cost is what is inside. Empty framing comes out fast. A vent, a drain from upstairs or a duct needs to be rerouted first. One exploratory hole during the quote tells you which.

The 1980s version of this is the fluorescent light box recessed into the ceiling. Removing it leaves a cavity that has to be framed in and drywalled flat before pot lights or pendants go in. It is not hard work, but it belongs on the quote.

Islands and peninsulas

An island needs space around it. Two people need to pass, and every appliance door and drawer needs to open fully without hitting it. An island squeezed into a room that cannot take one is the most common regret in a finished kitchen. In a lot of backsplit galleys a peninsula off the existing run is the better choice.

Decide these before cabinets are ordered:

• Services in the island. A sink or cooktop means drain, vent, water and power through the floor. Over an open basement ceiling that is manageable. Over a finished one it means opening and patching it.
• Receptacles. Islands need them, and where they go affects the cabinet design.
• Seating overhang. Anything past a modest overhang needs steel support set into the cabinets before the counter goes on.
• Ventilation. A cooktop in an island needs a proper hood and a duct run from the middle of the room to outside. That is one of the harder pieces of the whole job.
• The back side. It faces the living space, so it wants a finished panel. That is a cabinet order decision.

Moving the sink, range or fridge

Moving a sink means moving a drain and a vent, and drains need fall. Moving a range means the circuit and, for gas, the gas line. Moving the fridge still means a dedicated circuit and often a water line.

One Waterloo detail: many houses here have a softener, with the kitchen cold tap plumbed around it for drinking water. If the sink moves, that bypass line has to move too. It is easy to miss and annoying to fix after the counter is in.

Every move gets priced separately in the quote, so you can decide with the number in front of you.

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