kitchen/diner knock through cost

fluffymuffy

Hi,
I'm considering buying a house in Meath. It's a bit of a doer upper cosmetically in that it needs all new flooring and a new kitchen. Obviously I would be getting a structural survey done before any purchase but at the moment I'm just trying to get a ballpark on what money I would need to spend on it to make it liveable so I can put a realistic offer in on the house.

So, as it needs a whole new kitchen anyway what I would like to do is knock through to the dining room next door and create a big kitchen/diner. In my professional opinion the wall separating the two rooms is not a load bearing wall (it's a bungalow anyway), it just seems to be a drywall. It doesn't seem to have any electrics in the wall (there are no plugs or light switches) but it does have one radiator on it and the timer for the heating is right in the corner of the wall.

Assuming I am correct about the above details, what sort of ballpark do people reckon it would take to do this work and install a resonable kitchen not including flooring? The total space would be about 2.9m x 7.8m.

Also there is a fireplace in the dining room that takes up a lot of room. The fireplace backs onto the fireplace in the living room. Is it generally possible to remove chimney breasts? I wouldn't mind installing a wood burning stove or something like that instead or just getting rid of it all together.

For this sort of work do you employ an architect or a structural engineer?

I'm very new to all this and would appreciate any advice. I would love to just move into a house that had everything already done but there is a scarcity of houses and even less in my price range.