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Continued..
Here is an interesting shot. My kitchen almost looks like a movie set with no ceiling for cameras and lighting. You can also see more house wiring heading for the breaker panel. It took a long time to re-route all of these wires one at a time. All these remaining walls and cabinets get torn out.
Turning around and looking back into the laundry room. As you can see the wall is gone. The triple beam spanning the room here is where the wall used to be. This beam was not needed to support anything at this time but will play a crucial role for the future master bath. There will be a lot of weight on this ceiling when the marble floor goes down above it.
This image was shot with a wide angle lens, hence the fish-eye effect. It is really hard to show you just how large this space really is. The new ten foot ceiling also makes the space huge. You will notice these walls are white here. One night Alison and I couldn't take the red any longer and we rolled the walls white.
Here is a shot facing the back wall.
Here is one of the steel brackets I welded to support the two main box beams. This bracket is bolted to the triple beam I mentioned three images up. The plate at the bottom is a half inch thick. Like everything else I do these support brackets are way over built. Three carriage bolts go all the way through the triple beam. Two more carriage bolts go through the vertical uprights of the box beam into the sides of this bracket.
Here you can see the two uprights of one of the box beams. This gap at the bottom will be filled with a 2x4 for lateral stability. I am really pleased with how rock-solid this system turned out to be.
Here is a shot showing both box beams in place. What you can't see is the 2x4 at the top of the beam nailed into each rafter. By the way, the plastic was to stop fiberglass particles from raining down on our meals. Remember I was doing this work largely by my self so It took a long long time. Having said that I must admit by brother was indispensable on the kitchen project. He stepped up with many many hours of free labor.
The 2x4s are now in place at the bottom of the box beam. This shot shows the early morning light filtering in through the trees. This kitchen has turned out to be a very well lit, open and airy space. What a difference from the dark red low ceiling dark and dreary space it was.
The best laid plans always have something go screwy. In my case there was a door jamb where I needed a steel post. What to do, what to do? Well I had to span the jamb with a little 36 inch "I" beam. Did I mention I was into overkill? The full load of this box beam rest squarely on the "I" beam. The welded angle iron "bookends" stop the beam from shifting.
Now lets look at how this "I" beam is supported. Because the house is Balloon Construction the studs on either side of the door jam go from the crawl space to the attic above the second floor. That means I could not disturb the studs. I chose to sandwich the stud between two metal plates and tied them together with four half inch thick bolts.
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