Brass: love it or hate it?

My new house has a crazy mix of fixtures and hardware. I'll give you a tour. Above is the light fixture inside the front door.


Here's one in the second floor hallway at the top of the stairs. My favorite.


The door hardware is gorgeous. The knobs and backplates are almost all original, and there are a ton of them since every room has three doors in it. (This is no open-concept house, that's for sure.) Look at that plate on the pocket door. So pretty.


Here's a hallway wall sconce as we head back toward the dining room. Hmmm. Yellow.


It coordinates with the bright yellow dining room chandelier.


A theme repeated in the guest bathroom upstairs. (The bathrooms have painted trim; the rest of the woodwork throughout the house is dark.)


A lacquered brass-plated toilet paper holder will make you feel like a king sitting on a throne. Fancy.


Which brings me to this. The downstairs bathroom has matching fixtures, but they're eclipsed by the navy painted-over sheets of plastic faux tile on the walls, lending the room a creepy cave-like feel. The wallpaper adds something, too. I don't know what the something is, but it's not good.


Even the toilet has a bright brass handle for optimal luxury. (Look— there's a claw foot bathtub! I can't get far enough away in this tiny room to take a full picture, but it's wedged in there. It could be special, but the rest of the room is not doing it any favors.)


And then there's this guy in the kitchen. This is not a black and white photo—the fixture is nickel and charcoal gray.

I have to admit that before moving in, I had no interest in brass, copper, or gold of any kind. And now my tastes have done an about-face. (I just pictured my tongue flipping 180 degrees and it was a weird mental picture.) I just can't visualize a lot of shiny chrome, nickel or stainless steel in here. Some silver surfaces are nice mixed in, but the warm wood and age of the house seem to call for darkened, aged brass. The bright yellow 80s stuff is still pretty unappealing to me, but bronze, brass, and copper metallics are making a comeback in accessories and interiors. What do you think about brass?