"This is the sociable heart of our home'

By knocking down a wall and turning two rooms into one, Rachel Lovell has created a relaxed, family-friendly kitchen-diner

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Rachel Lovell and her husband Alex could see the obvious potential to \ccreate a generous kitchen-diner when they moved here. 'We loved the house but the ground floor needed a total rethink as the kitchen and dining room were separate spaces, which didn't suit our way of living,' says Rachel. Knocking down the dividing wall to create one sociable room was the long-term goal, but the couple had to save for the works, so as a quick fix Rachel gave the kitchen a budget glow up. 'Even though it was a new-ish house, the kitchen had seen better days,' she says, 'so I painted the cabinets with Rust-Oleum's Dove kitchen paint and freshened the tiles with a lick of white.' It was five years before the couple could realise their dream kitchen, and by then Rachel was full of ideas. ‘A traditional Shaker design was top of my wishlist, and I wanted the new layout to include a sociable breakfast bar and formal dining space,’ she says. ‘I'd also dreamed of a utility room that could hide the washing machine and house the tumble dryer – previously in th