How to remove short half wall in entryway...?

Question

In the entryway is a 4' high x 4' width half wall from floor with a top shelf, and juts out from full wall. It has 4 wood poles (decorative it seems) that start from the top of the shelf all the way flush to the ceiling. This is a barrier, which i think in the '60s people found decorative. How can this be knocked down? Is electricity a problem? Is this also a retaining wall for those poles? We don;'t want to ruin the ceiling or put a hole there...

Answer 1

"Decorative, it seems" is not the way to approach this.  You must make absolutely sure those poles are not load bearing.  If they are you can bring down the entire second floor removing them.  They may well be load bearing.  Often when people want to open up a room but the wall they want to move is load bearing, they do exactly this.  It allows the poles to hold up the load and still allow the room to be more open.

EDIT- Be advised. One responder may have been a carpenter for 15 years but that dose not mean you do not have a load bearing situation.  Never assume the person who erected that partition was a professional.  Many a home handy man has found this out the hard way.

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Answer 2

Yeah, I had a house with this.  It is simple to remove but will require some wall (where it attaches), floor (what covering will you use??) and ceiling repair.  (Hope you don't have popcorn ceiling......tho that can be repaired, just requires renting another piece of equipment.)

Electric wiring will be determined by where the wires come from...hopefully the wall and the taped off wire can be shoved back into the wall.

  I wouldn't do this unless you know how to do the wall repair.  Of course you could hire out the repairs....a couple of hours for a knowledgeable carpenter.  You could do the painting afterwards....I suspect you'll want to repaint the whole room so the patch doesn't show.

Answer 3

This will not be a load bearing wall.  The structure of this will consist of a doubled 2x4 on the end of the wall, top and bottom plates, 2x4's every 16", and a 2x4 nailed to the main wall.  First you need to determine where the wire comes from, and if you can safely relocate it.  Often you can use a "cut-in" box on the main wall and feed the wires into it.  Then it's just a matter of prying the wall from the floor and the main wall.  The end stud may project through the floor and be nailed to a block between the floor joists.  This is how I always build half walls, to stiffen the end.  To remove that, you can either remove it from the block, which will leave you with a hole in the floor to patch, or you can cut it flush to the floor with a Sawzall.  Once the wall is removed, and the floor patched (if necessary), you can patch in the drywall, mud and tape, and paint.  Patch in the floor and you are good to go.  Hope this helps.