I. Can give more pics/graph when I am on my computer later. I forgot to add that the countertops and cabinets in this pic are ALL I have. And no pantry. Basically, a really large kitchen 14x16, with no thought given to placement and all of it crammed onto one wall. As far as taking DOWN the wall, it adjoins the all to my foyer, sort of an L shape, so I couldn't take it down. The thing giving me a BIT of pause is maybe using it as a dining room in the future. The fireplace is in there...My dining room was in there at first and the playroom was part of my living/dining combo. I quickly got tired of the playroom mess being visible from the front door, so we switched them.

Came across this post while googling this exact dilemma. We are in a similar situation in a home built in late 90s with the waaaay too open concept trend. We have lived in the home with children for 5+ years so have first hand experience and benefit of hindsight. It sucks! Not only is this a sound and privacy issue, it is an energy and HVAC efficiency issue. If you have a separate upstairs AC, you have all that wasted space for your sytem to try to cool, more area for hot air to rise, etc. Our upstairs AC cant keep up in hot Texas summer months, and HVAC professionals have cited this as a primary reason. Curious to know what @decoenthusiaste ended up doing! We are planning to evntually replace with full walls. Replace that dome light and put in 2-3 nice canned lights along the hallway with some good parobolic bulbs and it will be a well lit hallway. Could even install motion sensor switches etc. The stairway is still open to give it some open-ness, so that is no different than how most homes are designed from the get-go.

So, the breezeway originally was the entire depth of the house, but the back end is now laundry/enclosed area? I think screening the front would be nice, especially if you have a nice view out front. We had a breezeway and they made the front part a bedroom and the back a mudroom/passage to the kitchen. They kept the windows and door across the front and people do mistake that door for the front entrance, but what can you do? I'm a porch person, so I say go for the breezeway. We would have liked to revert, but ours is a very large bedroom with very large closet (attached to HVAC) and it would make the house three bedrooms, instead of four. Your room doesn't sound like it has a very practical function as it is so I say, go for it!

I used a wooden batten at the top of the ceiling from wall to wall, glued in position with ”no nail“ cement, (no drilling) bead all around and smoothed. You could do the same, coming down from the ceiling to top of your scheen, does not have to be to big, i used 1/2 x 3/4 x L. Allowing the cement to cure, and treating the material and matching paint, again after drying, screw in stainless steel hooks (1/2) two at each end and equally spaced about 10-12 inch apart. Then using your choice of screening material, the size and colour, there is plenty of chose from. I used fencing sceening, which had come with some small brass hole studs, at one end, to hang up on to your s/s hooks, easily adding more hole studs matching size and pitch as required with a kit of hole studs, punch and pliers.