To knock out this chimney breast and put a wall of cabinets where the stairs are?

[radiatordrama]

Our dining room is too small and I'm terrified someone will fall down the stairs between it and the living room.

Is my proposal unreasonable?

Get rid of the chimney breast for sure. Stairs don't look the safest.

The cabinets will make the stairs very hard to climb.

I would suggest posting this on the Property and DIY board, with a floorplan if possible. Tonnes of good advice.

I guess ChatGPT is useful for some things.

Closing off most of that stairs with a wall of.cabinets will make the room be/feel much smaller - presumably you want to do this so you can have some kind of bannister rail??

How much of the chimney breast do you want to take out? You do realise you'll likely have to take it out on the floors above all the way up to the chimney stack itself because thats a lot of weight to just suspend in mid-air and it looks like you have no easy way to underpin that for the floors above.

Is that wall a party wall with your neighbour or in the centre of your house? There are party wall regulations and you'd have to get agreement from your neighbour.

I think the cabinets might help make the transition between the rooms (and therefore the stairs) more visible. Getting rid of the chimney breast opens up more room, too. YANBU!

Has chat gpt done the structural design too? Are you removing the chimney breast full height? Or supporting it somewhere?

Personally, I would leave it. It's unusually shallow (doesn't protrude into the room too much) so not worth the hassle.

This is not a party wall and there is no chimney breast on the floor above!

It would be a lot cheaper and less structural to get some units with boxing/an additional drawer underneath to bring them up to height (you could use wall cabinets rather than base units for a slimmer profile). Get the space between the chimney and the extension/RSJ fitted with shelves and doors as well and you'll have tons of extra storage.

There is a hearth that you can't see which extends into the room and obstructs diners' feet.

To be honest, that's my working plan. We are about to redo our kitchen as well and I want to order wall units, colourmatched to the woodwork and possibly with glazing, that are installed on the living room floor. The stairs below this can be taken out, which will provide precious floor space.

Floor space is the main objective here and storage is less of a concern 😊

It looks so bland without the chimney breast though. Are there some narrow open shelves you could put to the side of the stairs instead, that would make it look more open, but also delineate the space

This is my greatest concern. We would probably put a mirror or some artwork there.

Well, you do have a massive unit taking up a fair proportion of the space. You wouldn't need that if you utilised the alcove and units (which wouldn't need to have the stairs removed, you just build out drawer/cubbyhole storage for the middle step and secure the units to that).

If you got rid of the cabinets on the left and got something for the alcoves for storage, you'd have more space to walk through.

It doesnt look like there is a hearth that extends out further out than the fireplace but by taking the fireplace out you'd have to replace the floor where this was built and it loses the character of the property.

A different shaped table might help too.

If you’re thinking of selling anytime soon, look at whether the character makes a difference for selling and price in your area. It does for ours apparently. Our fireplaces had been removed, we got reclamation ones, and it’s made a huge difference.

Dining table wise, I wonder if a longer rectangle table not too wide with a padded bench seat on the fireplace side would work better. Or chairs that tuck under the table fully