Kitchen design, knocking walls down?

[chipperhead]

I've just built an extension off my dining room to be used as a summer room and my idea was to take the wall down between my dining room and kitchen to make a nice sociable living area for the family.
This wall that I intend to take down however has a chimney breast so it's going to be a big job and my other concern is it will just create too big an area.

I've just come up with another idea however I'm not sure if it would look ok.

This is my kitchen now and the wall I wanted to get rid of.
Instead of taking the full wall out, my idea is to put lintels were the red lines are and remove the wall underneath.



I would then put a range cooker were the old boiler was in the first picture, utilising the chimney above for extraction.



And finally a plan of how it would look.



I've never seen anything like this before so it may just be a total disaster and my other concern is what it would look like from the dining room side, you wouldn't want to look at the back of a cooker so would need a unit or something at the back.
I would also have 2 doors from the hall into what would now be one big room so would need to block one off.

So is it a barmy idea or could it potentially work?

 

[Fegruson]

Is it a load-bearing wall? If so, it might be possible, but might not be approved.

 

[mac1st3]

First off, is it a supporting wall?

Would the chimney breast need support as opposed to just dangling out of the ceiling?

 

[kylew]

The first thing you need to do is determine if it's a load baring wall, with it being right on an external wall, there's a good chance it is.

Add to it that rooms with chimney breasts usually have the joists coming off the chimney breasted wall perpendicular.

So yeah, that's something you'll need to find out as lintels may not be right or good enough to use.

As for it being a good idea, I think it'd enhance the look of the area, though it may be worth adding a few more pictures to give a better idea of what the area looks like.

 

[kylew]

First off, is it a supporting wall?

Would the chimney breast need support as opposed to just dangling out of the ceiling?

The Chimney breast will go right up to the top of the house, it in itself will likely be load-bearing in terms of joists and floors.

 

[blueboy2001]

I'm sure it's doable, but I'm not sure how well it will work. Anyone who's cooking won't be able to see anyone in the dining room and you're creating a massive open space so you'll need to consider how to heat it effectively.

A better solution might be to look to remove the chimney breast altogether and create an opening on the left hand side of it into the dining room. You are then more flexible in terms of where you can position the cooker and you can vent the hood to the external wall to the right.

This won't be cheap to do though (whichever way you go) - you'll need a Structural Engineer to the calcs and design the supports and it'll also need building regs - not a problem per-se, but it will cost time and money.

 

[JBuk]

it would look a bit silly imo , remove the whole wall if possible or do as above

 

[blueboy2001]

The other problem you'd have with your original proposal is you've got no room around the cooker to put ingrediants/hot pans or whatever which would be a pain and probably cause mess. You've also got the potential for someone to come unsighted along the right side of the chimney and walk right into when you're removing hot things from the oven for example.

 

[JBuk]

Aye that's a good point, a cooker should have plenty of work area around it imo

 

[Felix Da Housecat]

The other problem you'd have with your original proposal is you've got no room around the cooker to put ingrediants/hot pans or whatever which would be a pain and probably cause mess. You've also got the potential for someone to come unsighted along the right side of the chimney and walk right into when you're removing hot things from the oven for example.

Very good point here.

Also what's it going to look like from the other side in the dining room? all open plan apart from a bit of wall in the middle creating two walkways into the kitchen.

Also in your picture where you have the tv on the wall those base units will need to finish closer to the window to allow you to get past the end unit and the brick work of the chimney, and may well look a mess once put into action.

If I were you I'd get a professional kitchen designer in to give you some ideas.

 

[chipperhead]

Thanks for the thoughts, some good points have been raised.
In answer to a few of the points, it is definitely a load bearing wall so would consult the relevant people.
The chimney wouldn't just dangle out of the ceiling as I would use a lintel like is currently being used but just alter the height .
If you are cooking you would be able to see in the dining room as you can see straight through to the left and right hand side of the chimney breast but also in the gap above the cooker and below the extractor.

Having no where next to the cooker to place ingredients, hot pans etc is a very good point, I'm sure the kitchen would be big enough to have a centre island so I could use that.
If you were looking from the dining room you wouldn't see a bit of wall in the middle and two walkways as there is no wall in the middle above the cooker so the only thing breaking up the full empty wall would be two columns.