Opening up living spaces: decide what still needs a door

Keep an overlap diary

For a few ordinary evenings, note what everyone does at the same time. Record where an activity happens, whether it is noisy or quiet, and whether the people involved want company. Include the less photogenic bits: a phone call, the television, washing up and someone trying to finish work.

Then choose the overlap that causes the most friction. In a hypothetical household, the cook wants conversation while someone else wants to read nearby without hearing the television. A single shared room might answer the first wish and make the second harder. Your brief needs to recognise both.

• Which activities would be better together?
• Which need visual privacy, quiet or a door?
• Where would someone go if they wanted to leave the shared activity?

Name the kind of opening you need

I would ask the design team to show the connection in more than one form. A wider doorway, a retained wall with a generous opening, and rooms joined by doors can produce quite different ways of living. Compare them against your overlap diary before choosing the most open drawing.

MBIE's room-by-room guidance identifies noise conflicts as a drawback of open-plan living and suggests adjoining spaces that can close off when needed. If sound separation matters, ask the team how the proposed wall and door arrangement will achieve it. A door drawn on a plan is not a promise of silence.

• Does the opening need to stay open all day?
• Where would the doors sit when open?
• Can the room still work when they are closed?

Account for the wall you are losing

Make a quick inventory of what currently uses the wall: shelving, a radiator, sockets, switches, artwork or the back of a sofa. Ask where each useful item would go. An opening should earn its place after these things have been accommodated, not leave them as problems for later.

I would also ask for a view from the main seat towards the kitchen and hallway. What becomes visible? Where does the eye stop? This is a different check from looking down at a floor plan, and it can help you decide whether retaining a short wall is worthwhile.

Check what the wall does for the building

An internal wall is not automatically expendable. MBIE's guidance on exemption 11 excludes walls that are load-bearing, provide bracing, form fire separation, are part of a specified system, or are masonry of the kind described in the exemption. Simply establishing that a wall is not load-bearing does not settle the consent question.

Have the actual wall and proposed alteration assessed by an appropriate building professional, with engineering advice where needed. Confirm the consent pathway before work starts. Ask what supporting work, service changes and making good must be included in the design and pricing.

• What evidence confirms the wall's role?
• Who will resolve any structural questions?
• What work beyond the visible opening belongs in the scope?

Take one clear decision to the meeting

Bring your overlap diary and finish this sentence: 'We want these rooms connected so that..., but we still need somewhere to....' That gives the team a useful design problem without prescribing demolition.

If you are considering opening up your living spaces, I am happy to talk through those competing needs and the checks that would help you choose an arrangement.