Knock through all or part of kitchen / living room wall?

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Hi all

I'm soon to be moving into my first flat with my other half (just the two of us, unlikely to be more). This is the layout of downstairs. The kitchen needs re-doing. The question is, whether we should use the chance to knock through to the living room?

Note that the rooms are on a different level. The difference is probably 2 steps but not been back to look yet.

My thinking at the moment is that we would prefer not to knock through completely, as it would mean losing a large wallspace in the kitchen and the steps down may not feel right.

However i'm drawn to having an opening in the wall (maybe from chest height in the kitchen up to 2-3 foot from the ceiling and say 2 metres wide) which would allow us floor cupboards / a sink on this wall as well as full height in the corners and mean we could talk between rooms. I envisage standing head height in the kitchen to be about level with sitting head height in the living room. Concern is that the opening might look odd in the living room as it would be more in the middle of top and bottom.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? would it feel odd given the height difference? any other ideas?

thanks for any help, b0bby

To me knocking down between kitchen and dining room is OK, you expect the smell of cooking in a dining room. However, I believe cooking smells in a living room is completely wrong and I do not understand why people do it.

If that was me....I'd be looking to knock the bathroom and kitchen together and move the bathroom upstairs (if there isn't one there already).

Either way I agree with brian, a living room and kitchen should be separate.....you tend to make lots of noise in the kitchen and disturb TV watching etc. The fact that there is a floor difference as well just compounds this.