Can I open up an old house or move interior walls?

What do you want the opening to accomplish?

An open plan can improve interaction and sightlines. It also changes where noise, cooking smells and visual clutter travel. The wall you remove may have held the only useful kitchen storage or the best place for a sofa. If the goal is watching children while cooking, a targeted connection may work. If the goal is two simultaneous video calls, more openness may make life harder.

Draw the furniture and daily routes first. Include the route from entry to kitchen, kitchen to dining, bedrooms to bathrooms and the place visitors put coats. A large open room with no good place to sit is not a successful layout simply because it has fewer walls.

Compare three spatial options

Keep the rooms: Improve furnishings, lighting and the way rooms are assigned. An underused dining room can become everyday family space without structural changes, subject to the actual use and conditions.

Connect selectively: Test a new or enlarged opening, better doorway alignment, or an operable separation. Retaining some wall can preserve storage, a fireplace setting or room proportions. Any opening still needs project-specific assessment.

Reconfigure substantially: A more extensive plan may be worthwhile when circulation is fundamentally awkward or the kitchen and service spaces cannot meet the brief. Include structural design, service rerouting, finish continuity and the effect on rooms above and below. Do not assume that an engineered solution will be feasible, affordable or approvable until it is investigated.

What must be checked before a wall moves?

Ask the design team to identify load paths, the nature of the wall, concealed wiring and piping, ventilation routes, fire separation and escape requirements. The investigation may need records, measurements and carefully planned professional access. Neither a wall's thickness nor its position in a photograph is proof that it is removable.

In Chicago, the repair exemptions in the construction code do not make cutting away an interior wall or partition ordinary exempt repair. Confirm the permit route for the actual project before work. Chicago permit-exemption provisions (opens in a new tab)

Different houses suggest different comparisons

For a greystone, compare retaining the identity of the front rooms with a more contemporary kitchen and family area farther back. For a Tudor Revival, an existing arch or detailed fireplace might be a reason to keep a room's boundaries while improving an adjacent connection. For a Prairie house, test the effect of any proposed opening on the horizontal trim, built-ins and relationships between rooms that are actually present.

In a two-flat or three-flat, the question includes unit boundaries and shared circulation. A desired opening or combined floor is not merely a decorating decision. In a vintage condo, association approval and common systems can constrain a proposal even when the wall appears to sit wholly inside the unit.

What should a concept drawing show?

Show retained walls, proposed changes, furniture and the intended routes. Label structural feasibility and service routes as pending where they have not been established. A spatial concept explains an idea; it does not specify beams, temporary support or demolition methods.

Three-tier check: Furnish/finish keeps the layout; services/reconfigure tests targeted openings; full rehab evaluates the whole plan and its supporting systems together.

Next: Read working-room planning and renovation scope.