Restructuring an apartment: when to move walls and when to leave them
The instinct is almost universal. A client walks into a dark, compartmentalised apartment, small rooms arranged around a central corridor, a kitchen separated from the living area by a wall that seems to serve no purpose, and the first thing they want to do is open it up. Remove the walls. Create flow. Let the light in.
Sometimes that instinct is right. Sometimes it produces the most successful apartment renovation the client has ever commissioned. And sometimes, more often than the renovation industry admits, it destroys something irreplaceable: the character, the quiet, the spatial logic that made the apartment worth buying in the first place.
Restructuring an apartment by moving walls is one of the most consequential decisions in any renovation. It changes the floor plan permanently, involves structural considerations that cannot be undone without significant cost, and commits the project to a spatial logic that will define how the apartment functions for decades. This guide explains how to think about apartment renovation walls, which ones can go, which ones should stay, and how to make that decision with the intelligence it requires.
At Yasmine B Design, every renovation begins with a thorough reading of the existing floor plan, not to decide immediately what to change, but to understand what the apartment already is before deciding what it could become. The wall that looks redundant on a first visit sometimes turns out to be the structural element that holds the building. The corridor that feels wasted sometimes turns out to be the acoustic buffer that makes the bedrooms liveable.
Understanding what walls actually do
Structural walls versus partition walls
Not all walls in an apartment renovation are equal. The first distinction any interior architect makes when assessing a restructuring project is between structural walls, those that carry the load of the floors and roof above, and partition walls, which divide space without carrying any load and can be removed without affecting the structural integrity of the building.
In Haussmannian apartment buildings in Paris, structural walls are typically the thick stone walls that form the perimeter of the building and the party walls between apartments. Interior walls are more varied: some are structural, particularly those that run perpendicular to the main stone walls and help distribute load across the floor; others are simple plaster partitions added during later renovations and carrying nothing. Identifying which is which requires a structural engineer, and no wall removal decision should be made without one.
The consequences of removing a structural wall without proper engineering support are severe: subsidence, cracking, collapse of the floor above. In a serious restructuring project, the structural survey is the foundation on which every design decision rests.
What walls do beyond carrying load
Structural or not, walls do more than define rooms. They carry acoustic insulation between spaces, separating the kitchen noise from the living room, the bathroom sounds from the bedroom corridor. They carry plumbing, electrical conduits, and heating pipes that will need to be rerouted if the wall comes down. They create the thermal envelope of individual rooms. And they create privacy, the ability to close a door and be genuinely separated from the rest of the home.
The open-plan apartment renovation trend of the past two decades has treated walls as obstacles. But walls are not obstacles. They are spatial tools, and removing them indiscriminately produces apartments that are brighter and more Instagram-friendly, but harder to live in. The decision to remove a wall in an apartment renovation should begin not with aesthetics but with function: what does this wall do, and what will happen to those functions if it is gone?
When to move walls and when not to
The cases for restructuring
There are clear and defensible cases for moving walls in an apartment renovation. The most common is a kitchen that is genuinely isolated, a small, windowless galley that receives no natural light, has no visual connection to the rest of the living space, and forces the person cooking to be separated from guests and family. Opening that kitchen to the living area is a structural intervention that improves the quality of daily life in a measurable, lasting way.
The second strong case is a corridor that consumes significant square metreage without serving any functional purpose. In some older Parisian apartments, a central corridor of 3 to 4 metres long and 1.2 metres wide represents 3.6 to 4.8 square metres of floor area, space that, redistributed into the rooms on either side, could meaningfully enlarge a bedroom or a living room. If the corridor provides no acoustic function, no privacy function, and no structural function, the case for removing it is strong.
The cases against restructuring
The case against moving walls is strongest when the apartment's character lives in its compartmentalisation. This is most acute in Haussmannian apartments, where the sequence of rooms, salon, dining room, library, bedrooms arranged en enfilade, is the spatial logic of the building. Removing the walls that create that sequence does not produce a better apartment. It produces a different apartment, one that has traded its architectural identity for more diffuse light and a more fashionable floor plan.
It is also strongest when the acoustic consequences of removal are significant. Moving walls in an apartment renovation means accepting that sound will travel further. If the bedroom is adjacent to the kitchen and the wall between them is the only thing that allows the bedroom to function as a sleeping space, removing it is a serious decision that cannot be undone cheaply.
Finally, the case against restructuring is strongest when the renovation budget is limited. Moving a wall is never simply a demolition cost. It involves structural assessment, possible beam installation, rerouting of electrical and plumbing services, replastering, repainting, new floor finishes at the junction, and re-coordination of all the trades affected by the change. What looks like a simple wall removal can easily represent 15 to 25% of a modest renovation budget.
The restructuring process: what it actually involves
From decision to execution
Once the decision to move a wall has been made, based on structural assessment, acoustic analysis, functional evaluation, and budget, the restructuring process follows a specific sequence. The first step is obtaining all necessary building permits and co-ownership approvals. In Paris, any structural modification to a shared building requires the authorisation of the co-ownership syndicate (syndic), and in many cases a formal declaration of works or a building permit from the mairie. Proceeding without these approvals is illegal.
The second step is the demolition and structural intervention. If a load-bearing wall is being removed, a structural beam must be installed before the wall is taken down. This requires temporary propping, precise engineering calculations, and experienced tradespeople.
The third step is the coordination of follow-on trades: electricians rerouting cables, plumbers rerouting pipes, plasterers finishing the new surfaces, floor specialists extending the existing parquet or stone to cover the line where the wall stood. This coordination is where an experienced project manager, or a turnkey studio like Yasmine B Design, earns its value.
Common questions about apartment renovation walls
What walls can be removed in an apartment renovation? Non-structural partition walls can be removed without structural intervention, though permits and co-ownership approval may still be required. Structural walls can be removed but require engineering assessment, temporary propping, and the installation of a structural beam before demolition. The determination of which is which must be made by a qualified structural engineer.
How much does it cost to move a wall in a Paris apartment renovation? A simple non-structural partition removal might cost 2,000 to 5,000 euros including finishing. A structural wall removal with beam installation and full service rerouting can easily reach 15,000 to 30,000 euros or more. Budget conservatively and get structural and service surveys before committing.
What is open-plan vs closed-plan in apartment design? Open-plan apartments minimise internal walls, creating large, connected spaces where kitchen, dining, and living functions share a single volume. Closed-plan apartments maintain distinct rooms separated by walls and doors, preserving acoustic privacy, thermal control, and spatial definition. Neither is inherently superior, the right choice depends on how the occupants live and what the architectural character of the building supports.
How long does apartment restructuring take? The structural phase of a restructuring renovation typically takes 4 to 8 weeks depending on complexity. In a Haussmannian building, co-ownership approval alone can take 4 to 12 weeks before works begin. A full apartment renovation involving significant restructuring typically runs 6 to 12 months from brief to handover.
The decision that defines the home
Moving walls is not a design decision. It is a structural and spatial decision that has design consequences. The apartment that is opened up without careful analysis of what it loses in the process is an apartment that will be difficult to love in five years, not because the opening was wrong in principle, but because it was right for the photograph and wrong for the life.
At Yasmine B Design, every restructuring decision begins with honest analysis: what does this wall do, what will happen when it is gone, and is the gain worth the cost. That analysis starts with reading the floor plan carefully, understanding the ceiling heights the walls support, and knowing whether the result will work as open plan or not.
Ready to begin? Send the team a message at yb@yasmineb.design, or follow the studio on Instagram and explore the blog for inspiration and insights from the heart of Paris. The conversation and the transformation starts here.