What has changed since 1986? Obviously, not the walls if you want to remove them.

They did remove one wall that used to close in the dining room; that's just one example of how the plans are different from what I'm living in now. I wanted to make sure that the walls I want to remove to open up the living room aren't the walls that hold up my roof. If I go up into the attic and find that's the case, then I can get a contractor to build a couple load-bearing posts and I can decorate that nicely.

Thanks Beth H. for the pointers and pictures!

If I want to remove interior walls for an open floor plan, how do I know where my load-bearing wall joists are?

Wall joists aren't even a thing. You need to call a structural engineer, period. Honestly, this is not something for you to be trying to figure out.

i believe she meant load bearing walls and ceiling joists. obviously she will need a pro to do the work. I think she just wanted to know if the wall was load bearing before she started work.

I err on the side of caution, especially when someone uses the wrong terminology when dealing with structural issues. It's just too dangerous to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

Get a professional involved ASAP! A lot of the time they can see from being in the attic the way in which the roof is supported. However, any GC or engineer will tell you there are no guarantees until all the walls are opened up. There be any number of surprises.

Also, when you have a load bearing wall removed, IT IS NOT AS EASY AS INSTALLING A BEAM AND POSTS ON EITHER SIDE. You are redistributing a lot of weight to two posts and an engineer has to make sure what's below those posts can support the weight! Many people have to have the floor dug up and footings created. Oh, and if you have a basement, then you may have to have posted installed in the lower floor if you have one. All this is why, removing one load bearing wall could run upwards $10,000.

I have a condo, so no attic to go into, but due to being a condo and the configuration the few people I had over to look said the two walls couldn't be load bearing (nothing opened yet). Well I started removing sheet rock after removing everything from my kitchen and guess what... load bearing. I had a GC over and he confirmed it and prepared me that until I removal all the sheet rock from the perpendicular wall, he couldn't say that wasn't load bearing. Normal rule of thumb is any walls perpendicular to a load bearing wall are not load bearing, but guess what... load bearing! I required one wood beam and one steel I-beam. Over $3k I didn't anticipate. Below you'll see it was just a closed off kitchen and both walls were only 8ft long.

Wow TJ, thanks for the advise. I can't believe all the extra work that was put into it! But it looks great now, well worth it.

Sammy, you can err all you want, but my question was NOT whether I should do this myself or not. I apologize I called them wall joists instead of ceiling joists. Just like Beth H. said, I want to see if it's even plausible. I'm not about to put my work belt on for this one, however I love to be involved when working on my home. I have professionals that already work with me on other projects, this will just be added to the list.

Any experienced general contractor can tell a load bearing wall with a trip to the attic and/or basement. No engineer or drywall removal required.