2 Steps forward, one step back

So, we finished the rough framing of the south wall in the bathroom. Extended the height of the wall that we had framed. I will need to go back and shim up a couple things, sand down a couple others so the drywall will lay fairly flat. Flat enough for this house, anyway. Not the prettiest framing, but it will work.



So, Jen and I started talking over more of the framing we need to do, and then started talking about our plans for changing the ceiling in our office (2nd BR). Started talking about one possibility, but my thought was that it would add some load to the center wall of the 2nd floor. So we started looking at how much weight is on the center of the house. I figured we needed to know the size of the beam downstairs to determine what it could handle.
So, I went downstairs and used the dremel to cut a small square in the drywall of the beam.
The "beam-like" chunk of wall is 13" tall. but inside is completely hollow! I started to suspect as much when I measured the height and found it 79", suspiciously close to door opening height. I think this was a 3rd bedroom, or completely separated dining room or something similar at some point.
So, this meant more work. In order for this to be proper, we need to add yet another wood beam. More work. Something that I had assumed all along was OK. But it explains the springiness of of the floor in the office. Ah well.
So, running the numbers, we will be using a 9.5" X 1.75" LVL beam. This will allow us to make this opening 3" taller, which will really make it feel more open, I think. We also will be able to decrease the jut-out in the wall you can see on the left side, to make the opening larger. We have yet to decide how much larger we'll go. It's about 69" opening now. We could go up to 92" or so if we wanted. But I think it may be something like an 80" opening or so. So, after we complete the bathroom, this is next on the list so there's no worries when we change the ceiling in the office. Which right now is a poor excuse for framing. Really just hacked together poorly. Like much of this house was. :-)