Dear Houzzers,

I am the second owner. I am adding a floor plan, and would like to ask your opinion on opening up the wall between the living room and dining room. Would it create different layout possibilities? It's the left wall in the photo above.

Thanks!

Adding this - it would be a similar layout:

and another one for small living room:

Removing the wall might be a great solution to opening it up and allowing more options. Could you remove the right wall as well?

If you removed both walls, you would be left with a great room and the furniture arrangements would be endless. You could even relocate the dining room to where the piano used to be and have a cozy arrangement by the fireplace and another larger one in the remaining area.

Hadari--great house, beautiful period architecture. I like the ideas of Deco, and of Debbie suggesting removing the dining room walls in common with the living room. I would add to this by suggesting that the kitchen is on the small side and if budget allowed, I would suggest more adjustments, such as relocating the kitchen to the area of the breakfast room, and adding the kitchen space into the dining space, to create a truly 'great room' that would be 20 x 23 feet, with a couple of support columns in the middle, as the existing center wall and opening are no doubt structural. This would be in a perfect world, and would involve a lot of design work and engineering to pull off. That being said, a larger, asymmetrical room can be difficult to furnish as a great room/dining area, but a larger square room offers additional possibilities. Happy Houzzing.

Removing the wall between living and dining also makes layout challenging too, because walls can be useful to place furniture. In a period house, to take walls out, you want to consult with an architect or designer - and consider the other uses.

For this room, as is - a really comfortable reading chair and ottoman by the fire, with an end table, a lamp by the bookcase - a reading corner there for one also would be comfortable with the ottoman for two by the fire.

Across from the window, a long sofa - put a sofa table behind it along the wall so you can center it on the window and it doesn't matter that some of the opening between the two rooms is behind it. Use a narrow wood bench type coffee table that leaves the circulation path along the window side of the room and add two chairs (ideally matching) - one at each end of the sofa facing each other / swivel capacity / low backs. A writing desk at the photographers end of the room also facing the fireplace behind that end chair/ end table (make that end table round) . You can upholster an office chair with a great fabric print that sits in the back corner to make it yours. This will give you a place for a computer / laptop / mail / homework. Looking at the window - to the right, a chest below for media would give you a place to wall mount a television above on a swing arm and pull it out on an angle towards dining door for room to watch.

DMH design and I agree, that is highly likely a structural wall you are wanting to remove. U definitely want to consult an engineer or architect about such a project considering the historical appearance of your home