Help me plan an open plan kitchen / diner by knocking down an internal wall..

[basilstrawberry]

My downstairs (floor plan attached) is increasingly feeling cramped, with the dining room being used as half a playroom (limited space) and half as a “whack everything on the table” dumping ground. It gets used as a dining room very rarely.

I love the idea of knocking down the internal wall between the kitchen/ dining room to create a big, sociable space (perhaps with an island) instead of what we currently have. The kitchen is functional, but no more than two people can eat at the existing islandish outlet and it feels cramped with 4 people in it (ie if you’re cooking for people etc).

We definitely don’t want to do an extension (this isn’t a forever house, and we wouldn’t get the return)- more an internal rejig. I have no idea what the costs might be like for this as I know we’d have to factor in a new kitchen, not to mention the actual knocking down, but I’d like to try and get an idea of what it could look like first. It’s a semi detached Victorian property, in case that’s of any help.

Nb - I am absolutely terrible at visualising what this might look like/ whether it will even work & have scoured google/ right move trying to find inspiration, but nothing is quite right. I even tried one of the “plan your own kitchen” tools. So, please, please do share photos or floor plans of similar, if you have any, to help my un-imaginative brain!

I would take out the wall between the dining room and the kitchen and bring the kitchen into the existing dining room leaving enough space for a dining table in there. If it isn't an attractive feature, consider removing the fireplace and chimney breast to give you more space - the upstairs chimney breast will need to be supported by a steel. Where the sink area and downstairs loo are I would put a door in to separate from the rest of the kitchen and create a utility room. I particularly don't like washing machines in kitchens and especially not in kitchen diners.

The location of plumbing and drains will affect the cost of doing this work and the wall removed is likely to be load bearing and will need a steel to support upstairs. Build the cost of a structural engineer to do the calculations into your estimate.

Whether it's worth doing this depends on how long you intend to stay and also what the neighbours living in the same kind of house have done. If others have extended instead it might not be worth if someone will buy your house, extend for a bigger kitchen and restore the wall to have a second separate reception room.

Thanks for the ideas! I hadn’t thought about reconfiguring that way. The kitchen has actually already been extended out (you can see where on the pic) so it’s already bigger than neighbours, who have galley type kitchens. As you say, though, whoever buys it next might look to extend out more- which would be do-able, but not very cost effective.

Ah - are there any more windows in the kitchen and the dining room or just that rooflight in the extension?

Yes, you can just see the long window sill on the left edge of the pic (length of the work surface on the left in the kitchen on the floorplan) and there is also a 1x 1.5m (approx) window opposite the fireplace (left wall) in dining room.

I can tell you our structural engineer costed about £500 and our steel quote for a similar length was £2500 (although may be more as a stand-alone as it’s one of 3 we’re putting in). If there’s gas or electric in the wall it will add ££ relocating them.

But it would be a lovely big room and for me open plan living and kids just makes sense! We’re endlessley running from room to room and cooking and clearing up is taking us away from the precious few hours we see them between school/nursery and bedtime.

But ask me in a year we may want our walls back 😂

Didn't want to make an assumption and also wanted to be sure there would be enough natural light.