I’m Considering Redesigning My Blog – Opinions Please!

I designed my blog back in April 09 and I’ve received a lot of great feedback from people about it. However, I am in the mood for a change. This is one of my weaknesses – designing and redesigning.
As your Internet business grows, you learn more about how people navigate your site and where road blocks may be appearing. It’s a great idea to take a look at your web design at least once a year and determine how you can improve it.
Now, I’m not exactly “due” for a redesign yet as my blog has only been live for 3 months. But, I’ve been thinking about this for a little while and I can’t get it out of my head. Plus, now that our Best WordPress Design Contest has launched, I get to see all of your amazing designs and I’m getting lots of great ideas!
What Do I Want?
My current design is really cheery, but it’s almost too cheery. I would like to go a little darker with the colors and make it look more modern.
The more content I add to my blog, the more cluttered it seems to be getting. As many of you know, I can’t stand messy web sites! I would like the new design to add more white space to the layout.
Combining my two navigation bars into one will help keep things organized and save on space.
I want the colors to be gender neutral (not too girly or too masculine).
I want to know if you have opinions on my layout and navigation. Is it easy to get around my blog?
I’ve added the first redesign I like so far to this post. I would like to get your opinion on it as well as my current design. If I make changes to the mockup or create a different design, I will add it to this post. Please let me know your thoughts and thanks!