Knocking through to create an open-plan kitchen, dining and living space has been one of the most popular home improvements for years. Done well, it can transform a dark, divided ground floor. But it is not the right answer for every house or every household, and the work involved is more than taking out a wall. Before you commit, here is what to think about.

Why open plan appeals

Open-plan layouts connect the kitchen, dining and living areas into one space. The benefits are real:

  • Light from front and back windows reaches the middle of the house.
  • Sightlines make the floor area feel bigger than it is.
  • Parents can cook while keeping an eye on children, and everyone can be together while doing different things.
  • Entertaining is easier when the cook is not shut away.

When it works well

Open plan suits homes where the existing rooms are small, dark or poorly connected. Many Victorian and Edwardian terraces in Oxford have a front room, a back room and a narrow galley kitchen in a rear outrigger, all strung along a hallway. Opening up the back of the house, often with a rear or side-return extension, can change how the whole ground floor works and finally connect the kitchen to the garden.

It also tends to work well in houses where the family spends most of its time together, and where there is still another room, such as a front sitting room or study, that can be closed off.

When to think twice

Separate rooms do a job that is easy to underestimate.

  • Noise. Sound travels across open spaces. The dishwasher, the television and a phone call all compete.
  • Cooking smells. They reach every corner, so a good extractor ducted to the outside becomes essential.
  • Working from home. If someone needs a quiet room with a door, make sure the new layout still offers one.
  • Heating. A large, tall space with lots of glazing can be harder to keep comfortable than several smaller rooms. Plan heating and insulation properly rather than relying on the old radiators.
  • Character. In some period houses, the separate front and back parlours, with their fireplaces and cornices, are part of what makes the house special. Removing them can take away more than it adds.

The broken-plan compromise

Broken-plan living sits between the two. Rather than removing walls entirely, you create zones within a larger space using:

  • wide openings with nibs of wall left either side
  • glazed internal screens or pocket and sliding doors
  • changes in floor level, ceiling height or flooring
  • a kitchen island, shelving or a half-height wall

You get much of the light and openness, with the option to close spaces off when you need to.

The structural side

Many internal walls in older houses are load-bearing, carrying floors, other walls or the roof above. Some are not. Which is which should be confirmed by a structural engineer or surveyor rather than assumed.

Planning permission is not normally needed to remove internal walls in a house, unless it is listed. Removing a load-bearing wall does need Building Regulations approval, because it alters the structure. Building control will expect structural calculations from an engineer for the new beam and its supports, which are usually steel, sometimes concealed within the ceiling. Temporary propping is needed while the wall comes out.

The cost of the steelwork and making good varies considerably with the span, the loads above and how the beam needs to be supported, so get a price based on the engineer’s design rather than a guess.

Party walls

If a new beam bears into a wall shared with your neighbour, or you are removing a chimney breast from a party wall, that is notifiable work under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. Notice must be served between two months and a year before the work starts.

Listed buildings

In a listed building, removing or altering internal walls usually needs listed building consent if it affects the building’s character, even though the work is entirely inside. Carrying out such works without consent is a criminal offence, so speak to the conservation officer at your local planning authority before you plan the layout.

Fire safety: the loft conversion catch

Open plan has a fire safety side that often surprises people. In a typical two-storey house, the stairs leading down into an open-plan ground floor are usually acceptable. But if you also convert the loft, creating a storey more than 4.5 metres above ground level, Approved Document B expects a protected escape route down to an exit. Where the ground floor is open plan, that normally means either new partitions to enclose the escape route, or an alternative approach that includes sprinklers to the open-plan area, a fire-resisting partition and door separating the ground floor from the upper storeys, and fire-resisting separation for the cooking area.

If a loft conversion might be on the cards in future, design the ground floor with that in mind now.

Start with how you live

The best layouts come from thinking about daily life rather than following a trend. Where do you eat breakfast? Where do the children do homework? Where does the post, the shopping and the muddy dog go? Walk through a normal weekday and a weekend, and the right balance between open and closed space usually becomes clear. A good architect or designer will help test the options before anything is knocked down.

North Oxford Developments creates open-plan kitchen and living spaces as part of extensions and refurbishments, coordinating the structural engineer’s design, building control and the trades from steelwork to decorating. At 22 Vicarage Road in Oxford a single-storey rear extension formed a large open-plan kitchen, living and dining space, and at Chestnut Close in Chesterton, near Bicester, a double storey extension and refurbishment created an open-plan kitchen. If you are weighing up the options for your ground floor, we can visit and talk through what is practical.