Well, this is the latest plan I have for the upstairs bathroom. What do you think? The shower has an elliptical shape, would contain the splash of the water, no door, no threshold. Also leaves enough room for the rest of the bathroom. 

This LVL spans 15' and now the studs are gone. 

The kitchen, pantry and dining room are now one space!

 

Question: should I clad it in drywall or sand and stain?

Dining room (L), pantry (C), and kitchen (R).

From this...

... to this.

Been digging in the basement. Busted through the concrete (which is only one inch thick, resting on top of two inches of gravel. Now I can more properly support the beam in the center of the basement.

I put the dirt from the basement into the cistern ...

... only to discover I will have to buy a lot of dirt and have it filled. Very unsafe the way it is now. 

An early sketch but discarded idea of leaving the pantry and dining room walls intact by punching out a peninsula to open the space up.

I went bold:

The dining room (on the left), the kitchen (on the right) and the pantry (center top)

are now all one space.

Took these panorama shots of the new space. From the kitchen looking at the dining room on the left and the back door, soon to be french doors.

The kitchen on the left and the dining room on the right from this shot taken from 

the former pantry space. 

The dining room on the left and the kitchen on the right.

The new open space is possible because the 15' LVL will hover above the kitchen and support the second floor. The cement pier, rebar reinforced, cut into the cement basement floor will support the new LVL on the first floor. 

 

This pantry window is the single worst window in the house, so it will be replaced.

The window over the kitchen sink. Should I replace it?

The single back door will be replace by french doors leading out to the back deck.