...you need to look at how the loads from above (roof, 2nd floor) get down to the foundation... what direction do the joists and beams run in, how/where are they supported.

Peeking inside the wall will not yield an answer.

Beams are horizontal members, columns are vertical members.

You need a framer, not an engineer.

Bemocked- nothing above. Nothing below. We are thrown because of the random free standing column.

Ulisdone- yes sorry, misspoke. I meant a support column.

Joseph- so you don’t think this will be a problem?

Its impossible to tell from pictures on the screen. The only way you will know for sure, is to get someone in there that actually knows about load bearing walls, to get the correct answer. In the meantime, dont go removing anything, because if it turns out to be load bearing, it will need to be supported and have a beam put in.

Cat_ky of course. Like I mentioned, I’m not removing anything until we get a pro out. It just seems odd since there’s nothing above or below it. But we will see! We will prob remove the drywall this week anyway since no matter what it is we decided it is worth paying to either remove it or put in a recessed beam.

You just bought this house? Please forgive me if this seems a little "snarky," but I have to wonder why you bought a house you dislike enough that you want to remodel it right away. I hope the rest of the house is more to your liking.

As for what I think, I think you should live with it for a year or so before you go knocking down walls. There's a pretty decent chance that by that time, you'll decide it's not such a big deal after all, and not worth the possibly expensive work that needs to be done to change it.

And by the way, if you do this mod, that'll mostly be money up in smoke. You probably won't get it back when you sell the house.

Thanks for your input @DavidR but we purposely bought this house to make it ours, we love everything about it but the kitchen isn’t functional as is with a few broken cabinets, and it was priced very low in a fantastic neighborhood that usually goes much higher because the other homes are updated. We definitely will get money out when we go to sell by doing this update considering the area. That said, we don’t plan to sell for a while and will get to live in a lovely new kitchen for years to come. We are comfortable in our decision, and budget. I would have appreciated some input on the question asked, rather than judgement for doing a remodel. Why be on a home forum, that often talks about remodels, if you’re going to be snarky to someone in the midst of a remodel?

DavidR-- Every house I've ever bought (well only four so far) needed remodeling right away. Usually terrible floor plans and poor (or weird) finishes are what made the house affordable to purchase. Where we live you choose between commute, school quality, and price when house shopping. You can have at most two, often only one. Getting an ideal floor plan is an added constraint that can't enter the equation for most people.

A few hours with a sawzall (and then a few months putting things back together) can do wonders.

If a house has location, location, and location and nothing horribly expensive to repair then there's no reason not to move interior walls around; that's a straightforward, relatively inexpensive process that most folks can learn to do.

Do you have a floor plan? That would show far more than badly lit closeups if confined spaces.

I want to live in DavidRs world, where homes are so abundantly available in every price range that everyone gets to choose one that has all the things that matter to them (school district, commute time, yard size, home style, garage space, parking for boat/RV, etc). And then no one has to remodel - lovely!

Not like when I bought my house ... dead of winter, corporate relocation so fixed timeline, coming in from out of state, and 2 house hunting weekends were paid for. I was thrilled to find a house that would not need an addition (but needed just about everything else). Low inventory markets are very real.

To correct myself again, by curved wall, I mean the angled wall. We’ve just been referring to is as a curve. This is the builder’s original floor plan - I requested the blueprints from our county too. To better see the wall I’m describing I placed two red X’s over the wall that will come down. It’s the wall with the niche in the original photo. We will extend the dining room wall straight, where the arrow is, by 24”. That allows us to put in a huge island with seating and plenty of storage and counter space still.

I can see why you don't like it as it is. There was a period where architects threw lots of random angles in kitchen counters, usually at the expense of functionality. Corner sinks are not popular here. It looks like you have lots of space to work with, but it's not well utilized.

In DavidR's defense, we often see posters here who have just purchased a house and are rushing into cosmetic kitchen remodels without thinking a lot about the functionality. The "can't live with cathedral oak and beige tile" people. For them, living with the layout for 6 months or a year forces them to think about the layout and what the kitchen's real problems are.

@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. :)

At least part of that wall bears loads. You might have to end up with two posts, and the wall would be better than that.

Great news. We have it confirmed from an engineer, our contractor who happened to be at the house today, and by the builder that the angled wall is not load bearing. The wall it attaches to on the dining room bears the load. Good to go with our plan!