Open up a wall. Add a story. Don't guess at what's holding the house up.
FRAMO handles the structural side of remodeling — bearing-wall removal, second-story additions, room additions, and seismic retrofits — engineered, permitted, and shored correctly before anything gets demolished. If your remodel involves a wall that's holding something up, this is the crew that figures out what replaces it.
CA General Building License #1138219 · Bonded $25,000 · Workers'-comp insured
Structural remodel, framing exposed · Los Angeles
Five ways a remodel changes what's structural
Which one you're doing decides the engineering, the permit path, and how much of the house has to come apart to get there. Here's what each one actually involves.
Bearing-Wall Removal / Open-Concept Conversions
Taking out a load-bearing wall between a kitchen and living room isn't a demo job, it's an engineering problem: an LVL or steel beam sized to the tributary load, carried down to posts, carried down to a footing that can take it. We handle the calc, the shoring, and the install as one sequence.
Best on: opening up a kitchen or living space
Second-Story Additions
Adding a full second story means the existing foundation and first-floor framing were never designed to carry it. We evaluate what's there first — foundation capacity, existing shear walls — before anyone signs off on the plan, and add the hold-downs and shear panels the addition actually requires.
Best on: adding bedrooms without expanding the footprint
Room Additions / Bump-Outs
Ground-floor additions that extend the footprint, tying new foundation and framing into the existing structure at the seam — the detail that decides whether the addition ages as one building or two.
Best on: expanding square footage on a tight lot
Structural Reframing for Conversions
Turning a garage, attic, or basement into livable space usually means reframing the floor or ceiling system, adding real insulation, and — for a bedroom — a code-compliant egress window, not just drywall over what's already there.
Best on: garage, attic, and basement conversions
Seismic Retrofits & Soft-Story Strengthening
Bolting cripple walls to the foundation, adding shear panels and hold-downs to older wood-frame homes built before modern lateral code. Most of the pre-1980s housing stock across the Valley falls into this category whether the owner remodels or not.
Best on: older homes with cripple-wall foundations
Same footprint, load path redesigned
Enclosed framing stage on the left, opened-up structural shell on the right. Drag the handle across to see the stage change.
Real FRAMO jobsite photography — no renders, no stock. This is a placeholder pairing (see the HTML comment at the top of this file) — swap in a real interior bearing-wall-removal before/after once you have one.
Six layers, once the wall is gone
A wall isn't just a wall — it's a load path. Remove it without replacing that path correctly and the failure doesn't show up until years later, as a sagging floor or a cracked ceiling nobody can explain. This is the sequence a removed bearing wall actually gets replaced with.
Governed by CBC/CRC Chapter 23 (wood) and the project engineer's beam and connection schedule. Every connection inspected before it's covered.
Six stages on the website, eight when a wall is coming out
Scroll the sequence
Existing-Conditions Assessment
We walk the structure before touching anything: which walls are bearing, what the foundation is, what condition the framing is actually in versus what the original plans say.
Plan & Engineering
A structural engineer sizes the beam, posts, and any shear panels the new layout needs, and produces the permit set.
Permit & Plan Check
LADBS review — bearing-wall removal and second-story additions both require an engineered plan, not a contractor's judgment call.
Shoring & Temporary Support
Before any demo, temporary shoring walls or posts go in to carry the load the permanent beam will eventually take over.
Selective Demolition
Removing exactly what the engineer's plan calls for, protecting the adjacent structure and finishes that aren't part of the scope.
New Structural Install
Engineered beam, posts, and any new shear panels or hold-downs go in and get inspected before they're covered.
Rough MEP Adjustment
Electrical, plumbing, or HVAC that used to run through the removed wall gets relocated and inspected inside the open frame.
Final Inspection & Finish-Ready Handoff
Structural work signed off, shoring removed, space handed back drywall-ready.
Which remodel your project actually is
Side by side, in the terms that decide it. Bring us photos or plans and we'll tell you which column you're in.
| Remodel type | Bearing-Wall Removal | Second-Story Addition | Ground-Floor Addition | Seismic Retrofit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Typical scope | Single wall, one room opened into another | New floor added above existing structure | New footprint tied into existing walls | Existing foundation and cripple walls only |
| Structural approach | Engineered beam + posts replacing the wall | New shear walls/hold-downs added to existing frame | New foundation section tied to existing | Foundation bolting + shear panels added |
| Foundation impact | New point-load footings under posts | Existing foundation evaluated for added load | New foundation section poured | None added — existing foundation reinforced |
| Permit complexity | Engineered plan required | Full structural review | Full plan check, similar to new construction | Often a simplified retrofit permit track |
| Typical timeline | 2-4 weeks structural work | 2-4 months for the structural shell | 6-10 weeks for the addition's structure | 1-3 weeks per house |
| Best for | Opening up a kitchen/living space | Adding bedrooms without expanding the footprint | Expanding square footage on a tight lot | Older homes with cripple-wall foundations |
A remodel doesn't get a lighter code.
Same code as new construction
Every structural change is engineered to the same 2022 CBC/CRC Chapter 23 (wood) provisions as new construction — a remodel doesn't get a lighter code just because it's smaller.
Beams sized to actual load, not by eye
Beam sizing (LVL, PSL, or steel) is calculated to actual span and tributary load. Adding a second story means evaluating whether the existing foundation and first-floor shear walls can actually carry it — sometimes they can, sometimes the retrofit has to happen before the addition does.
Existing conditions get evaluated, not assumed
Original plans on an older home often don't match what's actually in the walls. We verify what's really there before the engineer finalizes a design around it.
LA's older housing stock is our normal
A large share of LA's housing stock predates modern seismic code — cripple-wall foundations with little to no bolting, undersized bearing walls, additions bolted onto additions over the decades. We work out of Van Nuys within roughly a 60-mile radius, and existing-conditions surprises are something we plan for rather than get surprised by.
What owners ask before a wall comes out
Almost any bearing wall can be removed if it's replaced with a properly sized beam and posts carried down to an adequate foundation — the question is never "can this be done," it's "what does it cost to do it right." The rare exception is a wall that's also part of the building's primary shear system, where removing it means adding lateral bracing somewhere else to compensate.
Usually not for a single bearing-wall removal — the shoring and beam install typically takes days, not weeks, and we sequence dust containment around occupied areas. A second-story addition or a full seismic retrofit is a longer, noisier project, and we'll tell you honestly during the estimate whether staying is realistic for your specific scope.
We evaluate the existing foundation and framing against the added load before anyone finalizes a plan — checking footing size, wall construction, and existing lateral bracing against what the addition will add. If the existing foundation can't take it, that becomes part of the scope, not a surprise mid-project.
It's temporary structural support — usually a wall of studs and a header — that carries the load a wall or floor was carrying while we cut it out and install the permanent beam. It's not optional and not padding: without it, the structure above has nothing holding it up during demo. We itemize it separately so you can see it's real work, not a markup.
Four things, in roughly this order: how much of the existing structure has to change (one wall versus a full second story), whether the foundation needs reinforcement to carry new loads, how much has to be temporarily shored and later restored, and how much MEP work gets disrupted by the structural changes. We break these out on the estimate so you can see where the number comes from.
Thinking about opening up a wall?
Send us photos or plans of the space, and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a simple beam swap or something bigger — plus a real number, not a range that moves later.
framoconstruction.inc@gmail.com · 15321 Saticoy St, Van Nuys, CA 91406