Have your friend listen to their architect and invite their friend over after the construction is completed.

Your friend's best bet is to rob a bank, or do a teardown. That much room scrambling and alterations is likely to cost more than building new.

You, the architect and your friend should take your plans down to the building department and see what they have to say about moving the stairs. You can't do a thing without a permit, anyway.

No way that those ideas ever happen. Not without spending more money than building new, plus hiring an actual architect, and not ”a friend”. Really, unskilled drafters are now trolling online forums instead of using the ridiculousness of AI?

Are those drawings by the "architect" ?

You can't turn a house into a loft apartment. But you can take the current layout, and without knocking down any walls, make it feel more open and fluid.

Check out the pink lines below. Widen doorway between kitchen and dining room as much as possible to make it feel like one space. Add a regular sized doorway between the mudroom and dining area. And add as wide a doorway as you can between the living room and the back room to make that area feel as much like one large space as possible.

Brainstorm these ideas in the space with a structural engineer and architect.

sorry i should i said, this is what the architect came up with, but he didnt seem that great. but he was already paid for a previous job for this one, so he is the one he is using. anyway, i have gotten great feedback in the past on here. hoping for some more of the same.

instead of extending the wall where the stairs are, 18" and hiding the post in the wall, should i just put a post in the kitchen and build it into an island?

only one post is needed, but do you think i should extend both stair walls to make it even?

Sorry, but…this appears to be an engineering issue. One lesson I have learned as a “friend” of those interested in my “ideas” for their space is to recognize my own limitations: What I don’t know. What I love about this forum is how much I am learning about what I don’t know!!! And the Pros on here are very insightful. I would back away from this project, but offer support to your friend.

"this is what the architect came up with, but he didn't seem that great. but he was already paid for a previous job for this one, so he is the one he is using. anyway"

Your friend will save money by walking away and starting new with another architect. The current one is really more of a butcher.

It would help if the rooms were labeled: some are obvious, but not all.

What do you mean by "extending the stairs 18 inches"? Is that the architect's idea, and has it been costed out? Stairs are very code dependent, which codes change over time. Old stairs are grandfathered in, but touch them and you have to comply with current code.

Sometimes if I wait long enough other people will say what I am thinking.

ARG -- but I thought there had to be cookies. All the best brainstorming involves cookies. Unless they involve wine. One or the other.

^^^^ Yes, definitely cookies. But no donuts. Whenever we have those I can't get the bumwad (tracing paper) unstuck from my fingers!

And it's looking like we may another drive by poster.

I ahve no clue the drawings are uselss no mwasurements no names of spaces and your friend should get an architect and an interior designer since you do not know what can and can't be done . You do not knock down walls with no undertsnading of the resulting work .IMO the architect ? you have needs to be doing more than 18" post if those walls are removed .