My partner and I are in the process of buying our first flat and I’m a bit torn on the best way to rework the layout.

My main goal is to get the most practical layout.

What’s not really working for me in the current layout is:

* The separation of the kitchen and living room
* How small the bathroom is
* The size of the current bedrooms

One idea I’m considering is removing the load bearing wall between the kitchen and the bedroom to create a more open-plan kitchen/living space. My hesitation is that this would mean opening the front door straight into the living room. I quite like the idea of having at least a small hallway, partly so the bathroom door isn’t opening directly into the main space. I’ve been wondering whether keeping a short section of wall near the entrance might help with that or if it makes more sense to tear it all down to maximise living room space but it does also mean you have a bunch of doors in 1 room so not sure if that looks strange.

This would mean I'd turn the current living room into the main bedroom, and use the bedroom next to it as a second bedroom (guest / future child). The bathroom is also very small, so I’m thinking about pushing that wall out slightly into the current main bedroom area (where the dip is) so it’s flush with the door, possibly even bringing it out a bit into what is the current hallway if that makes sense.

I’ve also seen layouts in other flats where people combine the current living room and main bedroom into one large open-plan kitchen/living area and move the bedrooms to the other side. The downside is that it would create two very small bedrooms, but the upside is that the kitchen/living area would be east-facing, so much better light during the day. That side faces a quiet private cobbled road with no vehicles, just residents walking past.

The current kitchen and small bedroom face north-west onto a small communal garden, which makes me a bit worried about lack of light having it as the living area but do like the idea of having the kitchen garden facing.

So I’m basically torn between:

* Having large bedroom sizes but having a smaller, darker kitchen/living space, or
* Sacrificing bedroom size to get a larger, brighter open-plan kitchen/living area

Very new to this so would love to hear whether my ideas make sense, what you’d change, or what you think would be the most practical layout for a flat this size.

Redesigning a Small 40sqm Flat