Knocking hallway and living room together?

[DontPutMeDownForCardio]

The house Im buying has an average sized living room as the main reception - its a little on the small side actually. The current layout is that you come into the house and go down the hallway and the door to the living room is about 6 feet in, then continue through to the kitchen. The hallway is quite dark and would be difficult to lighten up. Its not really possible to open up the living room and kitchen/diner as would cost too much.

If we knocked the wall out between the hallway and the living room, it would add about 3 foot to the width of the living room but I'm not sure if it would be a minus point to come from the outside straight into the living room or if we should keep the wall. What would you do?

[MillyMollyMama]

Minus to go from street into living room. Cold, wet coming in and unattractive door in living room. Save up and knock through the kitchen and lounge.

[HansieLove]

Could you make some cutouts in the wall, the size of windows? The hall would be lighter, it would make the living room seem bigger.

In doing that, you probably would not interfere with the wiring.

You could put new lights, or higher wattage, in the hall.

[BackforGood]

I agree with MillyMollyMama - it would really put me off a house having the door opening from the outside directly into the living room. I know a lot of houses have it, but it's a negative in my view.

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

We live in an Edwardian terrace and have a similar layout to yours - narrow hall that goes through to the kitchen with door to sitting room halfway down. We are the only house in the street that hasn't knocked through and I'm really glad because:

• noise from having stairs in living room and less insulation from kitchen noise / next door noise if you have an adjoining wall.
  
• coming straight into living room from outside as Milly pointed out
  
• great to have somewhere to hang coats, dump shoes without having to look at them while watching the TV
  
• consider fire escape route - is it possible to have a clear exit if a fire breaks out in living room / kitchen (I am neurotic about this I know)
  

I would save up and knock through the living room / kitchen and 3 feet extra of width isn't worth the aggro IMO

I think halls are really under-rated. It's nice to have a pause before you enter the house proper and somewhere to keep the wellies.

[BOFster]

Yes, keep the hall. Draughty livingrooms with outside dirt traipsed in are not a selling point.

[DontPutMeDownForCardio]

Ok pretty unanimous then! I'm not sure if making it all open plan would be possible at all as the stairs are between the kitchen and living room. Are there any other ways we could possibly lighten up the hallway? It will probably need a new front door so I guess we could get one with more cut outs in it as the one is got now is solid I think.

[burnishedsilver]

If you knock the Wall I'd suggest adding a porch.

[Tyranasaurus]

Another one against. For more light in thehall could you part glaze the internal doors?

[Aethelfleda]

I once saw a very effective hall where they had replaced part of the hall-front room wall with glazed square blocks so it let light in from the front lounge, and a large mirror on the hall wall opposite the Glass blocks. Combine that with a pretty front door (maybe stained glass in the glazing?) and you'd have a brighter, more iteresting hall.

[littleredsquirrel]

We don't use cut outs in walls very much here in the UK but in other countries it is far more common (browse pictures on houzz.com). I would definitely not knock through and agree that it will devalue the house if you do. I might however consider taking out part of the wall so that the hallway area feels more open plan to the living room. It really depends on how modern in style your house is.

I agree about using glazed doors downstairs. Its amazing how much more light comes in. Could you use a sun tube?

[mandy214]

Have lived in both and I definitely wouldn't consider a house now with no hall. For all the reasons Tondelayo says - particularly if you have children. Noise, safety, insulation.

I think the extra 3ft is not necessarily something that will be massively noticeable if you're clever with furniture and how you place it, choose colours for the lounge to maximise light, choose lights / curtains etc carefully.

As others have suggested, there are ways to make the hall lighter: glazed internal doors, part glazing on the external door, minimal window coverings on hall / landing windows etc.

[flipchart]

Why not get an architect around to come up with some ideas.
We did that with our house and the guy came up with some ideas I would ever of thought of.

[LondonGirl83]

You could replace your front door with a door that has more glazing (including the space above the front door).

A large mirror in the hall will make a world of difference as well to brighten up the space.

Lastly, if you still find it too gloomy you could install partially or fully glazed French doors into your lounge instead of a standard single solid door. Lots of companies make internal glazed French doors.

Good luck! Getting a hallway right is really challenging and its the first impression people get of your home.

[ScaryMcLary]

I'm going to disagree! We had exactly the same dilemma. An interior designer suggested we did knock through, but retained a couple of sections of wall. So the front door opens and coming in, there is a section of wall on the left between the front room and the hall (about 90 cm), so should we ever need, we could add a second door opposite the front door to make a little internal porch (not keen myself as I know it would become a bottleneck, but good to have the possibility). The major advantage in this is that it does considerably screen the front room and does not make it feel like you are walking straight into it.

Then we took the remaining wall out and added back in a smallish section in the middle with a cutout (about 190cm it think). This demarks the space whilst massively opening up the hall. We put some art in the cut out which looks fab.

Also added a mirror in the hall way opposite one of the 'open' sections to bring more light in.

At present our stairs do come down into the front room, but we could build another section of wall at an angle at the foot of the stairs if noise between the front room and the upstairs was a problem. So far it hasn't been.

We went for wooden floor through out, but it would also work fine if you wanted different flooring in the lounge space to the hall.

[DontPutMeDownForCardio]

Some great ideas here. I kind of like the idea of cutting out spaces in the wall - its a project for a while down the line but it hadn't occurred to me to do anything other than leave the wall, or knock it down. New front door and a nice big mirror. Thank you!

[Bitofkipper]

We did it in our last house many years ago. I loved it, but we did have a porch. Made things feel much more spacious and interesting.