I find it difficult to view your floor plan as it blurs if I enlarge it, so excuse me if this comment is invalid. Assuming the entry is from your living room and the home runs lengthways with the hall linking the bathroom, ldry and bedroom from the kitchen. The issue with this is that having two doors in the kitchen means you cannot form a working triangle for it to function well and don't have enough wall to fit out with tall storage. However, if you sealed up the door to the hall and opened access to the hall from the lounge as your plans seems to indicate in the top right of the lounge area, then you could widen the front opening into the kitchen rather than remove an entire wall, so integrate it into your living zone without lumping a kitchen in the middle of your lounge, you will improve your walk through flow, and gain a new length of wall in the kitchen where your fridge could go into the corner with a larger pantry flanking it, then your proposed layout t follow.

Hello Kathy, what beautiful floors you have.....too lovely to totally cover. I think you're on the right track using two large rugs which will delineate the two usage areas but still show off a bit of that pretty timber. If you can make the rugs big enough to allow a nonslip path for your dog, so much the better. lhh

Removing the walls as you've suggested should be ok as long as you check will an engineer first. They may be load bearing. This isn't a major issue to remove them as builders do this type of work regularly but definitely seek professional structural engineering advice first. Privacy to entry will be affected but not too bad. I'd do a furniture layout first and foremost to see if it the rooms will work being so open plan (i.e. noisy perhaps, where to put lounges and dining tables, etc.). People like open plan to look at but they are noisy in many cases as even talking noise travels. Even worse if you have children playing on one side of the area and you're trying to have a conversation with others in another area.

I have a 13,18,20 years old..you really need a separate living area for them to hang out..in a different part of the house..that way they don't disturb the adults. i wouldn't do it as an extension or part of living area..when they are little it's hard as you need to keep an eye on them been there done that.. when they are older it's a case of not only containing their mess..their rowdiness..noise..friends our apartment is divided into 2 ..kids bedrooms their bathroom and study, mezzanine in the front. our bedroom kitchen and living area out the back as the entrance to the apartment is out the back ..they need to go past our bedroom to sneak out..