Two thoughts:
- You don't really need to stop replication. You can just remove the article from the publication. The original and replicated objects will remain in place; any data changes moving forward, of course, won't be propagated.
- It is possible to replicate schema changes. If you bring up the Publication Properties and select the Subscription Options page, you'll see the "Replicate schema changes" option. We use this option so that we don't need to take these types of actions when a column size changes or other modifications are made.