I would save up my $, find a great General Contractor that I checked out, and talked to about taking out the wall and putting in a header with a rail or partial wall on the bottom. It would probably be worth every cent and you wouldn't be fighting it all of the time!

Please don’t paint the cabinets!! They look gorgeous and modern. We are building and I chose espresso cabinets and white quartz counters. Contrast makes a house look nice IMO.

its possible none of the surfaces ae original to the home. the value in that case is relative. In your community if there is a team that works with homes to do sensitive renovating I'd have a closer look at things . You havent indicated a whole house plan , do you like or dislike the paneling and so on. the value of the paneling if removed could be such that you could repurpose it. As well, old paneling gets painted often. What do you want from your older home? The picture is fuzzy and its only the entry way......its an odd little closet... maybe take it apart and make a better closet but I dont know.....A 200yr old home can be torture to deal with or something that rewards and satisfies you. too many unknowns. if you had time/resources/ help to do anything..... what would you re-create this area to be? look over the various areas in that sense then work to get close to some specefic goals, where it make sense over time , with your /budget/ resources etc. .... maybe you've renovated quite a bit inside and this is the last bit......we dont really know.

The brick got painted after a "free" paint job (court-ordered refund). All of the houses on my street are in the tan family with the exception of the house next door which has lighter gray siding and one farther down the street which is a darker gray. We picked a shade that was not in stark contrast to the neighboring house and lighter than the other. This is one of the larger houses on the street and I think the choice of gray will help it blend in more than stick out like a huge box. That opinion was based on looking at similar-sized houses and their color choices. One of the reasons why I wasn't keen on painting the brick black.