I'm liking RockyT's plan of a pair of lam beams directly below the bearing walls on the 2nd floor. I'm still working with the general floor plan that I started with, as follows:
I will have to adjust the window locations to accommodate the lam beam supports inside the exterior walls....no biggie. I could easily hide the lam beam support columns in the center wall (the wall that separates the garage and living zones). As this plan stands, the span between walls in the garage area (the span that the lam beams would cover) is 22'. I was planning on possibly stretching it by 2' to 24'. That is a pretty long stretch, but I'll bet there's a bonded pair of lam beams that will do the job. Thoughts?
