I asked the contractor if we needed a structural engineer to take a quick look. The contractor assured me that he was confident about framing out the wall that connects to the garage. However, a day later, I get a voicemail from him stating that the inside wall, the one that had the pantry door is load bearing. I was planning to push that one out to the left 3". He said we just need to be sure about the measurement, whatever that means. Are there techniques for moving a small section of a load bearing wall? I will have a small broom closet whose side walls will be perpendicular to the load bearing wall (that has been now stripped down to the studs). Perhaps those could take on some of the weight? The closet is only going to be about 15" wide. I am hopefully meeting with the contractor on Monday, to scope out the dimensions of the wall. Just want to know what sort of questions I should ask and to have opinions that may jive with what he says. Thank you!

Definitely hire a licensed structural engineer to take a look. We are in the design phase of our kitchen remodel and plan to take down a wall to open the kitchen up to the family room. Our design/build kitchen company has scheduled a structural engineer to examine the wall next week. They said the structural engineer may say that either nothing needs to be done or a support column many need to be placed there. If we need a support column we'll have to make it a decorative one and place it on the end of our kitchen peninsula and have it go through the cabinets all the way down into the basement. We are also using the engineer to tell us if we can catherdral our family room ceiling. It is an extra cost of $600 - 800, but I will sleep better at night knowing that the construction work is being done properly. Good luck.

Greendesign, LL does not want any support columns. This makes the problem much more complicated. Every remodel we have done, we have had structural engineer sign off on the architects design. My architect insists on this. LL, structural stuff is expensive if you want to open up as much as possible. This is one of the big reasons why open modern houses cost significantly more than a typical traditional houses to build. Often, they have to use a lot of steel to be able to open up without columns in the middle of a large room. There is a lot of steel to make these big open rooms happen. LL The answer depends on the foundation and the footing that is currently in your house. You may or may not have the adequate foundation/footing that can take more loads than what you are already giving it. You need a knowledgible person to come and look. There is no way off the cuff internet answer is going to help you. The reality is even if you 'underbuilt' the house, no one will know for several years. This is how the cheap builders get away with doing 'sub-par' work. Then you will start to see a few sags here and there after a few years. Underbuilt house does not fall apart as soon as you move in. The day you move in, it is new and beautiful looking. Then, in a few years, the windows and doors will sag and won't shut. The dry wall will start to crack in places. The floor will slope and sag several inches. Then the builders are long gone and you have a worthless house. I have walked into so many additional that are 'worthless' because we look at a lot of open houses. All I see is an add-on/remodel that needs to be completely torn out started again if I am going to live there. I won't buy it and live there but some fool will. Then they will start look into the house and they will uncover all the subpar work that was done to it years ago. This is how the stories of the houses go. When I look at my next-door neighbor's I see several windows that are sagging because the floor joists (or beams or something) are not strong enough. I see windows sagging several inches at the center of the house relative to the corners of the house. This is a very old house. They will live with the sagging windows that probably do not open and shut. You can always live in a subpar house. It probably won't kill you. Many people do because they don't know any better.

@cawaps the 90’s were wild for architectural angles for sure. Thankfully our house is not too bad with angles, some in the neighborhood are rough. Sure, I get that lots of people rush remodels ect, but there’s a way to say that without coming off as rude (as you explained the point in a respectful way). I do think DavidR’s initial response was more judgement for remodeling a kitchen in a house we purchased by implying we bought a house that we didn’t like and are wasting money in making it function better. When in reality, we love this house and found a unicorn in a highly sought after neighborhood, best school district in our state, walkable to downtown, and underpriced just needing some love. ANYWAY - for us, it’s way easier to remodel (our floors need some patching and repair in damaged areas too) before we FULLY move in. We were cooking and in the house while we made worked out our design. I also have a background in design, as do two close family members. Not everyone blindly jumps into a remodel. :)