Hi Nessieh, I don't think the dining room will look odd having its door blocked up as, from my understanding of the plan, it will all become one big room, so it won't look like it's missing a door. Also I don't think it would look unusual keeping the bit of wall where the dining room door is, a well considered furniture & wall decoration plan will help this even more so. Hope that helps! PB

Hi, Nessieh,

Looking at the plan, is it at all possible to move the doorway (the one marked 'b') back towards the hall? That way the kitchen/family room would be a bit bigger, and there wouldn't be a little lobby before the new kitchen door. I realise that the need to have some wall left for the beam to sit on must be taken into account, but wonder if the issue couldn't be solved that way.

Hi, I don't think it will look odd at all. I am wondering why you have created a hall between kitchen and utility room? I'd leave that wall and just have the back door enter into the utility room, which can look perfectly nice.

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On the subject of doors: I count 12. That seems like a lot. A lot of banging. A lot of "excuse me" and "sorry" time. And a lot of expense. I'm going to have a think about whether you can eliminate some (Carolina's already made one good suggestion) or at least make sure they swing the right way or convert some to pocket doors.....

Hi, I think your open plan layout looks amazing! Theres no need to worry about the small wall as already mentioned, this wont look out place once its a wall. The only area of your plan that I would reconsider is the utility / WC. The hall connecting these seems unnecessary and you may be better off considering opening the door straight into the utility room which then opens into the WC. This would afford a larger WC and utility instead of losing space to the hall way connecting them. Good Luck with your project!

Hi again,

We used an independent designer and having spoken with or met with a few different professionals from here on Houzz, for a number of reasons we went with Gina from Create Perfect, who has been amazing from start to finish (highly recommended!)

As mentioned by Carolina below, we were also super lucky and Gina even did YouTube videos for us of a virtual walk around of the space, so we could weigh up different options.

One thing I didn't know before we started all this is that with a good designer you also benefit from all of their trade discounts, so whilst they might cost a little bit of money up front (hundreds not thousands!) you will undoubtedly save in the long run, so whoever you chose definitely ask what discounts they get and what they're prepared to pass on to you

Gina also liaised with kitchen companies etc on our behalf to make sure we were getting exactly what we needed!

I would spend the money we spent on a designer 10 times over and for what you'll spend on kitchens and building works it really is a small investment and makes the whole process a lot less stressful and a lot more fun

Here are a couple of pics from ours of where we started and where we're at so far... still lots of bits to do before we finish but you'll get the general idea...

Before we had 3 small and dated rooms...

The 3D renders we chose as our final design (one of 6 layouts Gina came up with)...

And so far (still waiting for a lot of furniture)...

Hope it helps!

Hi Nessieh,

How exciting! It looks like you're going to have a fab space.

The door is definitely nothing to worry about, in fact it will be useful to have that bit of extra wall creating more usable space in that area of the room but also to make the hall feel a little more pleasant and less like a corridor area.

I love the rest of the layout and the access you have created. It seems completely sensible to have the utility separate for taking off dirty clothes and outside jobs or coming in from the Garage. The food storage is also sensibly placed for coming in with bags of food etc - and through it all you keep this great open plan space for the family! Great.

I find (like with Claire above - Hi Claire!), my clients find it useful to see their projects in a series of 3D images or walk-around videos before spending such a large amount of money on renovating or building. If anything it is piece of mind, but more often than not, you will see things you couldn't imagine and then have the time to change them or rearrange things which you just don't get further down the line.

I wish you all the best, I am sure it is going to look great!! Gina

I would definitely take that small section of wall out. I would build a 225mm square pier against the lounge wall to carry the steel. This can obviously have been designed by the structural engineer. Would also take the small food cupboard out too. Too many doors in such a small area

Obviously not quite like a 3D plan (!), but hopefully you get the idea. At the moment that entire area near the pantry down to the door in the middle of the kitchen is unusable space. It would be such a shame to go to all this effort and not have a home that performs as well as it could. Good luck!

I can't see it either!

I've responded to two enquires this morning - so hopefully you were one? if not try via the contact me button on my pro page.. thanks !