Me and my paintbrush

This house is so much bigger than our last house (almost double the size), so I spent some time last fall acquiring things to fill it up a bit.

Moving in mid winter means there are a lot of things around here waiting for warmer weather so I can work a little paint magic on them.

The things that can be done with spray paint are slowly getting done every time we have an afternoon in the upper 40's, like this past Saturday.
I always paint all of the chandeliers white. Always. They always start as hideous brass things and I slather them with white spray paint.

And then on Saturday I painted this one blue.

I am getting bored with my usual color routine. It seems like I paint everything we own white or green 1 or green 2 or blue . Oh, and occasionally pink .

Let's ponder painting some of this stuff!
I bought this at a thrift in the fall for $30. I LOVE that scalloped edge. It needs fresh paint and different knobs on the doors for sure. (My grandparents stained glass is leaning against the wall, also waiting for paint on the frames.)

I am thinking about painting inside the cabinet a different color than the rest of it. But what color? White on the outside and pink on the inside?

I have no ideas...
I bought this table at a garage sale many moons ago even though there was absolutely no room for it in the old house. I loved it's girly shape.

But right now it is kind of, well, nude colored. Blech. It's the first thing you see when you walk in the front door and originally I was thinking blue. Our front door is blue too.
Dave has been bugging me for years to paint the pie safe. I resisted. But the pine is getting really discolored and the cats and Jack have really torn up the screens. Since we are going to replace the screen with chicken wire, we might as well paint it.

You can see I tried out both blue and surprise! green. LOL

Last week I stuck a lavender paint chip on it because I really want to paint something lavender, but the purple does not work with the creamy white in our room at all. (Sadly it doesn't work well with the yellow everywhere else either.)
Dave and I bought this chair at an auction before Jack was born I think. I need to fix the caning on it desperately (not sure where to buy that stuff??) and make a new seat cushion. It needs a new coat of paint too.

White for sure on this one, since it is in the pink bathroom.
Speaking of bathrooms. I choose a grayish white for the hall bath. The grout is gray, everything else is white. It looks kinda purply though and frankly both Dave and I hate it. The night before he left we started auditioning a few paint chips in there.

These colors are all pretty good.

But here is my real problem:
I KNOW that if I choose one of them I am going to hate it in 2 months. Anytime I stray away from my usual style or color palette I get sick of it very quickly. If I stick to the stuff that I KNOW I love it seems to stick around here a lot longer.

I really wanted to branch out a bit in the new house. Stretch my legs a little. Try on a simpler style. Something less "collected" or "cottagey" or "girly" or "shabby". Something more like Pottery Barn instead of Flea Market. (I do not want to be the girl still hanging on to 1980's geese in 2010 if you know what I mean. LOL)

But Dave and I keep saying to each other "this house is missing something" or "this house just does not feel right yet". After spending hours yesterday pouring over the new Flea Market Style magazine, I honestly think it is because I tried too hard to make my style simpler. (Even though my best girlfriend will tell you this house is very *me*. And it is. Just a lot.more.sparse.)

How about you? Do you stick to the tried and true? Have you successfully tried something new in your living style? How do you keep what works for you feeling fresh and not like 1980's geese?

I should just paint it all blue or green or pink or white shouldn't I? :-)