We have a traditional style house - semi modern decor & my mom went out & blew a heap of money on a really ugly vintage desk & chair! She never buys decor for the house & then suddenly this desk!?! My lil sister was so mad she bursted into tears! Yes seriously it is VERY ugly! The desk started off in a guest bed room...so we could bare it. But when visitors came - to make more room in the guest room the desk go moved into the hall "TEMPORARILY" the visitors went the desk didn't. We snuck the desk back into the guest room...week later it was back in the hall....we rushed it off to the guest room & sooner than later it appeared in the hall again! There it remains! It my biggest pet peeve in our house! Now that I'm thinking about it...I think I might try yet again to slip it back in the guest room:D

Oh my monagigi.

For furniture you don't care for, you can always paint it and remove/plane off ornate chunks that offend you.

I had an aunt who liked clowns, they were in every room of her house, pictures as well as puppets...they always creeped me out as a kid....still don't like them.

for barrett: our 4 x 4 foot painting of a hummingbird....

but we both like it a lot.....

When we sold the farm I wanted to buy a townhouse (let someone else cut the grass and clear the snow, only a tiny garden for me). But hubby wanted to bring his tractor. So we bought a city house with a big yard. He still gets to use the riding mower and I still have to look after the huge gardens. He has a storage container with farm stuff he'll never use again - and the tractor! You can take the farmer out of the country, but you can't take away his stuff!

For some odd reason, the bird looks like its dead...is the picture hung upside down?

yes, a bird shaped felt birdhouse (creepy looking) given to me as a gift from a special family member...

My wife's old school files that she's not used in 20 years.

My dad occasionally builds furniture for Christmas gifts. I'm stuck with it all and get almost no say in what it is or what it looks like.

Ha! I imagine almost everyone has an issue like this! My home is partially filled with stuff that I would never have chosen. But those who have gifted me with those things are still present in my life and so, I have found mainly successful ways to incorporate them into my home. That in itself could be a separate how-to-do topic, right? Still....ooooh, it's a full-of-guilt issue, isn't it?

Early on when we had our 1100 sq ft 1920's Victorian, my dad built this console table that literally did not fit on any wall we had in our home. It's a beautiful table with glossed-over preserved center wood, but it stuck out into the doorway of any room we tried to put it in. Things like that he just didn't think of, or think of asking first. Years later, we now have it in our newer home, but for a long time it sat in storage.

B T, you are so lucky to have a dad who can build. You could design furniture and let him to build for you. :-)