ᐅ Ground Floor Plan Living Area / Kitchen – Partition Wall

Hello everyone,

I would like some advice or feedback on the layout planning for the ground floor (see photo).
Regarding the construction project: semi-detached house, solid build.
The picture shows the initial situation. We definitely want a freestanding island in the kitchen and possibly an open-plan concept on the ground floor. For these reasons, we plan to almost completely remove the wall and the associated glass door between the kitchen and the hallway (marked in red).
However, the staircase will remain open, and I am concerned that this might make all noises easily travel to the upper floor.
Does anyone have practical experience with this? Because of this concern, should we keep the wall, or is it generally not a problem?
Thank you very much!

Best regards,
NilsHolgersson

We have the staircase in the living area, just as you are planning it now. We can hear everything. I would never do that with children. We live as a couple, and if someone is watching TV downstairs, the person upstairs listens to an audiobook.

NilsHolgersson schrieb:

Does anyone have practical experience with this?

Yes, I do… in an older detached house.
The floor plan was similar to yours: kitchen at the front, and an open staircase next to the dining area.
A standard stair opening about 1 meter (3 feet) wide and over 3 meters (10 feet) long did not cause any disturbance for us. Hardly anything could be heard—no TV noise, no outdoor noise.

Plan differently... kitchen in the bottom right corner facing the terrace, so there is room for a real island.

A quiet sofa corner where the kitchen is now, so the distance between the sofa and TV is not too large.

The wall can stay. Removing the wall there could cause structural issues.

shenja schrieb:

We have the staircase in the living area, just as you are planning now. You can hear everything. With children, I would never do that. We live as a couple, and if someone watches TV downstairs, the person upstairs listens to an audio play.

It's the same in my parents' house. I hated it 🙁

I would never build like this again. In fact, as already suggested, I would swap the living area and the kitchen. The living room with the TV basically doesn’t need much space, and today I would always prefer a nice kitchen with an island and a nice table.