Hi guys, we recently purchased a property and looking to give it an update by opening up the living/kitchen & dining. As the current kitchen space is very limited, we are looking to extend the kitchen (by modifying the rear entry) and delete the load bearing wall separating the living and kitchen areas (post engineering and approvals). The dilemmas we are currently facing are:

• Wall separating the kitchen and living that we intend to remove will require a beam below the current ceiling line & column to cope with span and we are not sure how to tie that into the layout of the kitchen (possibly incorporate the column and beam into an island bench?)
• The layout (both current and proposed) does not have a main entry zone making it feel awkward and not really sure what to do to make the entry flow into the living space

Any ideas or inspiration is greatly appreciated.

Living Room (feature wall):

Living Room/Load Bearing Wall (Kitchen Behind):

Dining Area (View from Main Entry):

Kitchen Area: