can we see your space now, empty rather than overshadowed by previous owners things?

This is a broad question and depends in part on your budget, and your preferred style. To modernize, you could rip out all the flooring and paneling and brighten up the space with paint. Also, replace the railings which are certainly dated. The brick fireplace is okay, but if you want something fresh and modern, you could replace it with stone or tile.

Your personal style plays into this, but just speaking generally, I think paint would help. Personally, I like the paneling, and would paint it all a neutral gray or very dusty, muted color. Paint the beams and hand rail charcoal, and do a whitewash on the brick. You could also paint the balusters white, but I'm lazy in my photo editing, haha!

sorry but that just took every ounce of character out of this space and that looks like a bunch of cement walls...........

Funny description! I don't think it has that look. More like a library.

In the very back left there's a lot of woodwork. That I'd paint. It might be the dining room but it look like an outline of every wall. It starts at the wine fridge and goes right.

Well we have our old stuff in it now which consists largely of hand me down furniture so we are looking to upgrade (but no vacant pictures). The area is actually much darker and smaller than it appears in person (thank you wide angle lens). It is obviously very mid-century modern but the rest of the house has pretty traditional updates. The house is a little all over the place style wise. I do like the more traditional with some French country compromise (living in south Louisiana).

I planned on painting it at first but I don’t want to lose all of the original character. This is a “Lilly-pad” house (just learned that term) and not a forever home for us. But I of course still want to do some updating. I like the paneling but I hate the orange color. Of course sanding and painting it would be an option but I would imagine that would be VERY expensive.

Remove the carpet on the stairs. Hopefully there are hardwood stairs under. I like wood stairs without any runner.

Choose colors that don't fight with the wood hues. Blues, greens and neutrals are good but avoid reds and orange tones.

There's already a good deal of discussion about the paneling [here.[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/to-paint-or-not-to-paintjudges-paneling-dsvw-vd~5385937?n=66)

To begin, I would paint out the wood outlines on the walls and the ceiling beams the same color as the walls. I would then get a huge Persian carpet, put my furniture on that and add lots of large pieces of art and some large green plants. At that point I would re-evaluate the rest of the woodwork. If there is drama going on at the floor and furniture level it may enhance the dark woodwork and vice versa.