Your home is gorgeous! I spent a year renovating a 1939 petite colonial (1700 sf). In my case, I had to add a kitchen as the old one was tiny had badly renovated in the 1990s. A few workflow tips in your newer post with the kitchen. I'd put the prep sink at the range end of your island, instead of at the dining room entrance end. Think about it -- you chop, then have to carry the food to the range. Please rethink that desk in your kitchen. I've had "work/message centers" as built-ins in previous homes, but here in my new old house, I'm using a piece of furniture -- a drop-front secretary where I can close up the mess when guests arrive, but sit there and work (printer in the bottom). You can put the secretary in any room. Where your desk is located, it's not a drop station for bringing in the mail, schoolbooks, etc. For aesthetics, please try to make the kitchen fit the spirit of the house. White cabinets would likely fit it better than stained wood. Consider having at least a few glass-front upper cabinets. If you turned that desk space into storage, you wouldn't need to line the walls with upper cabinets. It's amazing what you can fit into a "hutch" look that would fit the aesthetics of your home. I had hutches flanking my farmsink in my previous home. One for pantry items, the other for dishes. My current 1939 home new renovation -- hutches -- the one of the left of my paneled fridge is for dishes and the one one the right side is filled with food items stored in canisters and containers. My kitchen is only 12x12 as the dimensions are in keeping with the original room sizes. The dining room is 12x12 and the living room is 12 x 21.

Too bad it's not a true center-hall Colonial. If you can find a new place for that powder room, I would - I assume it would then be a true front-to-back center hall house. Also, the bath would not be the first thing one sees when entering the house. It's too bad that someone "modernized" the LR with all those ceiling pot lights. A house such as this, should have end table and lamps, not pot lights. They belong in kitchens and baths, and in halls with low ceilings. I'd remove them if it were my house. Paint the railing and newel post on your staircase, a shiny Grand Piano black. You won't believe the difference it makes! A painter suggest this to me and it was an epiphany! Do have the floor done before you move in if at all possible. It's a nightmare to live through and you won't be able to be in the house after they apply the stain/poly - can't walk down the stairs! When you do the floors, have them stain the stair treads a bit darker color - they look very nice being dark and the contrast is attractive. If the door is truly un-useable, see about having it removed and a wall to replace it. Do this before floors. You have a lot on your plate and I'm sure you budget is stretched. Do get a GC in to give you some idea of the cost of things you cannot do yourself. Frankly, as a single, working mother with 4 children, I don't know how you will have time to do much yourself unless you have joint custody and have time with the children away. Don't push yourself too hard! I was once an early 30's single mother with a 2 1/2 yr old and a 5 yr old and I didn't work, but the house was very hard for me to manage by myself. It was also a 1938 Colonial but not as large and gracious as yours. I learned to ask for help and trade work with friends. I also learned to ask my parents for house-related things for Christmas and birthdays. I was lucky three years later to find a wonderful 37 yr old bachelor and married him. Unfortunately, we were only married 27 yrs due to his dying from prostate cancer, but they were wonderful years and he was a wonderful stepfather to my children as well as a wonderful husband and willing to do anything I asked around the house (except cook, but he did clean-up every night after dinner!). Good luck with your new adventure!

Looking for a white paint for the exterior of our center hall colonial

On the powder room, moving the location does not make sense. You generally don't want a powder room that opens directly into another room, and this house doesn't have a mudroom, another hallway, or an alcove to put it in. Unless you want to put on an addition for a powder room, I think it needs to stay roughly where it is. Your best bet IMO would be to take over the coat closet for the powder room, lay it out as a very narrow space with a toilet on one end and a sink on the other, and use a pocket door, maaaybe squeeze by with a regular door depending on dimensions. Then perhaps add a new coat closet of the same width at the living room entrance, if you use that enough to justify it. As for the kitchen, what do you want out of it? Do you like the location? Do you care if you can see right into the kitchen from your front door once the hallway is widened? Do you want the kitchen open to dining room, family room, both?