When we moved into our raised ranch I knew we needed more light in our kitchen.
In our family room we have a large bay window and over the front door we have a window as well. These bring in a lot of light but we needed to let that light into our kitchen.
When you come to the top of the stairs there is a wall that divides the kitchen and the family room. We knew we had to open that up.
For now we didn’t want to do MAJOR construction like taking the wall down and adding a beam etc. So we opted for an opening to let the light flow into the kitchen.
Here is how we did it…
First, we found the studs, we needed to leave enough support on the sides since it is a load bearing wall. We then marked, leveled and measured where we wanted the opening to be.
Second, we cut the sheet rock and teared it down. Here is what it looks like from the living room side..
And the kitchen side…notice the light pouring in!
We cut the studs inside the hole, and put our frame boards in place. We used pine, cut to size and screwed them into the remaining studs, framed the outside with a little trim, caulked the holes and gaps, primed and painted!
I love the way it turned out and how much light it brings into the kitchen!
What do you think?
Wonderful, practical idea! Great job and great pictures!!!!! Love the “before and after” effect – what a difference!
Great job. I have a similar house and I turned it into a half wall. You’d have to see it to understand LOL but behind the wall on the kitchen side is the stove and a cabinet on each side. The wall has a “bump up” to hide the back of the stove. Now I just need to find a sofa table or some type of cabinet to go on the other side to hold a lamp and a few odds and ends. Yours looks wonderful 🙂
I would love to see what you did as well!
When we first built our little ranch style home in 1977, it did not have central air. We put a window unit in the dining room, but the air would not circulate into the living room, so my brother cut a pass through into the dividing wall very similar to yours so the cool air could get through. We installed central air in 1980, so we didn’t need the pass through any more, but we liked it so we kept it! I loved it then and still love it, though now I have a blind in the window so I can open or close it for sound baffling when I have TV on in both the kitchen and living room.
June again– I added a shelf over that pass through on the dining room side to display some of my teapot collection. Looks great!
This looks great! I wish I had a space to do this in my home. I really like the way it opens up the room. Good job!
I have the same raised ranch layout and love the pass through. Our kitchen is very dark too and thought about removing the wall completely. Any kitchen projects yet?
Thanks Sarah! No kitchen projects yet. We will painting the cabinets this summer when it gets a little warmer outside. The kitchen I would love to replace the tile backsplash and counter tops but we have a few other priorities first!
What is the height of your passthrough and how did you come up with it? Thanks!
My brother did the same for us, but it was to let air conditioning into the living room from the window unit in the kitchen/dinette area. We added central air soon after, but kept the opening. We added a shelf on top the opening on the dining room side to display some of my teapot collection and hung a mini-blind to separate the spaces when TVs are on different channels in the two rooms. Works well for us.
I love the paint color! What color is it?
Thanks! It’s Perfect Greige by Sherwin Williams.
We are thinking about doing this in our kitchen/living room. How much did this cost you? It looks great and really opens up the space!
Thanks! Since we did it ourselves the only things we purchased is the wood and trim. So I would say under $40
We knocked the whole upper wall out and now have a really nice island, we also had enough room in the dining room side to put in patio doors to our bi-level deck. I love your front entrance that’s our next project.
Nice job, the renovation looks great!
Just a word of caution when working on a load bearing wall for anybody else that might be thinking about doing this. You have to be very careful. If you open too big a hole, you will not leave enough support to hold up your house. You have to at least use a header.
Your pass through is the exact one I was needing help on how to do .Great instruction. Crystal clear. I am also a Retired Grammie. Thank you.
This looks fantastic! Can I ask what you used to cut the drywall out with considering there are studs to deal with?