How to Design a Kitchen Around Structural Beams

Draw a schematic diagram of your house's kitchen or the location where you want to put a kitchen. Examine the structural beams in that area from an aesthetic point of view, and consider how you can remove trim, drywall or entire walls to expose and integrate the structural beams within the kitchen.

Remove walls to create a larger, more open space. Load-bearing walls need to be replaced with structural beams to support what is above them, which is a factor you can use as an opportunity for innovative kitchen design. Rather than hide a beam, leave it exposed as an integral part of both the house's structure and the kitchen's design.

Incorporate structural beams as functional parts of your kitchen. People who transform an old barn into a house often find large structural beams at different levels of the structure. Incorporate such beams into a kitchen by making them into counters, butcher blocks or seating areas.

Hang useful kitchen amenities from overhead structural beams. A structural beam is more than strong enough to support an item such as a cast-iron pot rack.