Thanks for your comment! The living room is currently 4mx5m. Our dining table is in the corner. its not cramped but eventually My children will grow and need more room.

I suggested to architect not knocking down wall completely but she said it’s a small room so it would really give great benefits to completely open it up. Esp as we have 3m ceilings.

I o love the weatherboard and pressed metal and don’t want to cover them w plaster. But I don’t think I can afford to weatherboard it all the way. I might float the idea of just having the top of the wall remaining to demarcate it. Thanks for your comment! Oh w it being open plan it will enlarge the room to 8x5 I think.

Agree with okl. It’s a bugger to match ceilings, floors and walls and skirtings when removing a wall. Much better and easier to leave some wall behind say depth of a beam on ceiling and around 40-60cm on sides. I like to see the history of the original layout by leaving remnants as markers. We have a dropped beam and also cross floor boards marking old walls.

okay I’ll suggest the ceiling beam as builder said we likely will have an exposed ceiling beam. Can I see a photo of your cross floor boards and dropped beam?

I may get some posts that match the ones out front hat are holding up our bullnose and lacework. Architect seems to be very against leaving any walls up. She said structural engineering may leave us the beam and posts for load beating. Thank you!

All great advice keeping part of the wall with the cornice intact, skirting boards were quite often used to define the importance of a room, ie: living, dining having deep skirtings and cornice with the lessor rooms having smaller plainer. I understand the Architect wanting to open up the space, but considering that you will need a support beam keeping the individual ceilings could work. I would paint walls ceilings and trims white to blend the rooms. But without seeing a floorplan it;s difficult to say, but certainly match all skirtings.

Get it priced first. Could be worth the extra cost in the long run.

Photos

can you post a floor plan, how many bedrooms are current in the house. we added two bedrooms with a study area in our Federation ceiling, the bathroom was in a small private space at the bottom of the stairs. Each room had a large rotating Velux window

Great visual,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i5CKZ7hZ0Y

I agree with the above suggestions of leaving a tiny bit of wall and a deep ceiling beam. It will keep the character of your house. You don't want to lose those lovely old features. To me, your architect is not respecting the character of your home.

You could always add Federation style fretwork at the room divides, if your style home had such features. This can be planned to be added at a later date to help finances.

Architect is still drawing up floor plans so here is my very rough sketch w terrible handwriting

Thanks for all your comments. i tried to show where the weatherboard walls are with the ”w” notation, and there is a pressed metal ceiling on the hallway, separated by an arch.

there is also a door in the middle of the room now.

I think weatherboarding it’s all now is the better option. Another dilemma is there are different floorboards in the rooms but just in width. Old house and various things in it. Part of the charm in that repeat. respect I mean.

This is all useful advice. Legendary flame - architect wants me to add new weatherboard down the left side sod the open plan (but not the right side but maybe I misunderstood her) but we were worried we couldn’t afford it. But it is worth it I believe. Just wanted to know someways we could get away w it for now and look to it in the future.

we need measurements to make sense of your plan

Sorry for bad quality. I’ll post the concept drawings when I receive them.

What a shame it couldn't be opened up to the rear, the bathroom is making that difficult, whats the ceiling roof like over this space, Just wondering if this area could be used and only adding 1 bedroom/Master up stairs with ensuite? the cost of the extra bedrom could be used to better advantage, is the wall between the kitchen and living open beside the fireplace. I would Def do shiplap ceilings while keeping the pressed metal in the passageway and as OKL dimensions are always needed. Re the door opening "to no where" it's perfectly normal not to be opening back to a wall, our dining and living rooms both had the doors centered

forgot, where are the stairs going

Thanks for the advice on the door! I’m glad I can have it open onto nothing. The stairs will go in the now second bedroom. I placed it against the wall of bedroom 1. So we need the space to have the stairs. We need three bedrooms overall. And also a larger living space is nice.

I think I will weatherboard one side where the door is, the ceiling beam wong I’ll

That single bedroom looks a bit like a shag on a rock!, what size bedrooms are you able to fit under within the roof , don't imagine it would take 3 with stairs.

Sorry the house app is playing up for me. The ceiling beam will mean I don’t need to match the ceiling Ng. Not sure re the other side though. Will post more of an isolated as the engineer may have different ideas for me. But this question was going to whether I knock down all the wall or keep the wall. Thanks for all your comments. So helpful

lots of houses in the area have a front bedroom. It won’t take three. It will take two bedrooms uostairs. Probably same dimensions and going over the kitchen and bathroom. We don’t have overshadowing issues as we are set back

I would prefer to see both ceilings matched with shiplap, to help tie the space, we all tend to look up. This would also mean that the wall between both rooms can be removed and therefore make the room appear bigger, as the height of the ceilings in each room will make them appear smaller if the wall isn't removed

Okay thanks. We have 3.5 metre ceilings s.

with 3.5m ceilings there's potential to add a new downstairs ceiling (and add some of that space to upstairs) but also suggest that you consider opening towards the back and having a bathroom laundry with the stairs in the second bedroom with various options for the new kitchen

so much better opening through to the rear and keeping fireplace if it's a goody

Is the living 3 x 5 or 4 x 5

Living currently is 4x5.

we are budget constrained so completely moving around the floor plan isn’t doable unfortunately - as even weatherboarding that one wall was a budget issue for us!

thank you bf or the floor plan okl. It was really good to visualise it though with the straight lines.

As OKL has shown, by moving the kitchen bathroom along with the stairs into the second bedroom opens up the house to the rear deck, while trying to incorporate the fireplace, This also helps reducing the problem with matching ceilings in the front rooms

You could reduce cost by keeping the one bathroom downstairs with a separate WC

The bathroom and stairs, the front bedroom will just fit a robe and QB

Forgot to add that the stairs will need a return to fit within the roof space or is it an extension?