Framing and Sub-Flooring - please help me decide if this is load-bearing, pics inside

Hi, I just purchased this home, and will be possibly moving some walls around to maximize space. I have a layout here.


(scroll to next paragraph if your in a hurry)
By the way, side note. I really have to give credit to this little Bosch laser distance measurer. I would have normally blew the thing off as gimmicky, but every time I do a new place, I try to pick up a tool that normally I wouldn't buy, kind of like a little present to myself before I start the job. Last time was a laser level that admittedly hasn't seen the light of day after the first try with it. But man this thing was cool, I began measuring the house and couldnt get enough of it, it was just too easy to draw a complete layout for which I normally would dread. It will help us estimate for tile, carpet, etc, and hopefully nearly eliminate those dreaded return trips to the big box stores. Ok, enough of that.

So, what I want to do, is expand the corner bedroom, into the bathroom which is too large for its own good, lot of wasted space here. I have outlined the wall in question in red, and in blue will be what we would like to do. The wall I believe is load bearing because of the way the house is built and the roof lines would show that there is a direct downward load, but I am very ignorant to this aspect of the trade because I simply have not dealt with this type of construction work before.

So in the picture of the floor plan, the red line is that wall I believe is the load bearing wall. I believe it is because just about where that wall is, the roof line changes. I am almost certain but because like I said I am not very knowledgable, maybe somehow it is not and transfers the load to the outside walls. but basically you can see in the picture that wall comes down straight from the edge of the top roof and then comes down a couple feet then goes to the lower level roof, but that vertical wall should be right inline with the wall I am trying to move, I am pretty sure based on the measurements that they are the same, and I would figure that the load from the top roof is transferring straight down. Or could it be transferring through the trusses to the outside wall?

Of course I am not going to go chopping into a wall based on somebody's opinion that it is not a load bearing wall. However I am more interested in finding that someone here could almost guarantee me that it is one (though I wish it wasn't load bearing), so I can then go about figuring out how to put a header in which will integrate within the closet or some way I can still open up this bedroom. Thanks for the help.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y186/mjjstang/Shepexpanded.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y186/mjjstang/shepoutside.jpg

Yep. Cathederal ceilings in the 10'6' bedroom, right?

Be safe, G

well no the cathedral is on the other side of the 10'6" (below it in the drawing) I have not finished the measurements so some of the house is missing on the sheet. But yah by the way I drew it and the way the house is pictured, it is reversed from how it looks, (confusing i know) but yah your on the right track. So just as I thought it is load bearing? so I was thinking, the total span of this wall that would be removed, including the span of the current door opening which will be set back to where the new wall would be, is 12 foot. but if I put the new closet opening exactly where this wall is, then I can just run a header across where cripples would normally be to bring down the closet opening, and then set in some jack studs towards the end of the closet near the middle of the room, If I can do this where each header is 72 inches or less, then I can use a 4x6 header, correct? This will minimize the visual space of the header being that most or about half of it is running the closet opening, then there would be close to say 6 foot of header running from the closet to the wall separating the two bedrooms. That wouldn't look too wrong would it? and it would work correct?

Yes, that wall is holding up the 2 roofs, one stacked on the other, AND the ends of two floor joists as well.
So... the total building span is 24', supporting one center bearing floor and roof and ceiling requires a header of 2-2x10's to span maximum 6'7" with two (2) support trimmers under each end. With solid blocking in the floor space directly under each double trimmer, bearing on a wall or beam below. The double 2x10's can be in the floor space above if the headroom is needed below, with hangers on each floor joist affected. Run this by your local Building Department for approval and a permit, then when you sell it will be accepted as quality work.

Be safe, G

ok, sounds good, but either way if we brought it up into the joists, assuming they are less than 2x10 which I am sure they are, we will have beams sticking into the ceiling. We have decided that it would just be best to build a bulkhead all the way back to the door. Since who cares if the pocket of the room where the door leads in, is less than 8 foot ceiling. But as far as the reinforcement below. why would that be required? should that be there already seeing as this is a bearing wall as is. I am fairly certain that there was some major reconstruction done, which is why the floors are sinking very bad. We plan to beef it up by digging 2 ft down, by 16 inch across and pouring 5000psi concrete as a pad for a bunch of screw jacks at various places in the crawl space to bring the floors back to level. I am worried that even then we will be ripping up floors and sistering. My main concern is that it is stable to work on.

There is a big issue we just ran into on the cathedral side. Where there was a built in shelf upstairs, that kind of added some support to the roof, we pulled the shelf out and where it was really tied in to the flooring and all, that rafter is about an inch higher into the ceiling than the others, like it didnt settle but the others did. I have to imagine this roof, the steep on on the right side of the photo, was original. But this should be reason for concern? It seems like an awfully long span and I believe there are only 2x10 or 2x8 in there. I really am guessing because I have not ripped into the insulation. This house had to have some type of inspection at some point or another. I just can't imagine that they could have gotten away with that shoddy of work.