Sky Deck, just ran across your thread and it's touched my heart as I understand just how much work is envolved in such a task so my hat's off to you for undertaking a project of this magnitude. I too was planing on acquiring a used FW and rebuilding it into what I wanted.
The more I thought about things the more I realized that maybe the better way to roll would be a ground up build in which I eventually elected to do.
Now back to the intent of this post......
Sky Deck wrote:
Here comes the can of worms...
ADDED: That huge cabinet I removed gave this wall some strength.
One of the things you need to keep in mind is that some of the interior assemblies (like that huge cabinet) provided structural integrity for the overall assembly.
Take heed in removing these assemblies or make sure that the new construction picks up the intended structural function of the old assembly being removed.
Looking forward to following the thread,
Cee