Nobody can help you from photos alone. Take some graph paper, scale out the existing space WITH walls, and note the ones you would like removed. All dimensions included, meaning all walls. doors, windows, and dimensions .

" How to decorate" begins with a plan, not a sledgehammer.

I agree a detailed floor plan is the best start.

a detailed floor plan is the ONLY start.

or you'll be the poster with the photo of a fridge standing in the living room saying "my husband just took down this wall, where should we put the fridge now?"

Are you sure about opening everyhing up? Because growing children will want attention all the time and will disturb willingly and unwillingly all the time. Cute, but a handful.

We have had two rooms made into one, but with sliding glass doors in it, so you would be less disturbed by them and their friends and still could watch them. Might that work for you too?

Even then we had a separate media room, where they loved to play with their friends and be able to leave more of their stuff laying around and watch programs and films over and over again, that no adult wishes to see even once.

It gave our family the closeness we wanted, combined with the rest that we needed.

Knocking the wall out to the kitchen will steal your sort of private work area there too. Loving your kids can also mean, taking measurements they do not become an annoyance. So I would at least leave that little bit of wall where the workspace is intact.