This. You can have it when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands.
That would have to be a life-size bust of Elvis in a bright teal jumpsuit with gold studs. I actually bought it for my brother and his wife for their anniversary. Unfortunately, when I moved, I left before the movers finished packing (leaving my brother to supervise) and he slipped it into my shipment. The movers at the other end demanded that I open the box (prominently labeled “BUST OF ELVIS”) so they could see it. They ran away shrieking…
Leg lamp.
Got to be the Mona Lisa As a Clock.
My dad (a physician) has a statue of a doctor examining a rather attractive woman, who is sort of splayed over a desk with one tit sticking out of her blouse.
I dont know if it’s tacky. I think it’s semi-humorous, and a bit of a social experiment.
When I moved into my new place I found an old set of rabbit-ears (antenna) in my stuff, so I set it up on top of my digital-cable connected, flat screen TV … as sort of an objet d’art.
What’s interesting is the looks/comments I get from guests. Generally these comments range from … nothing, because it just looks natural, to … “wait a minute, what the hell do you have the rabbit ears for?”
Hmmm…tough question. Where to start? A jackalope piggy bank? The twin stuffed Penguin computer penguins? The mini Oscar Mayer Wienermobile? My 18" horny toad bowl? The list goes on…
We have this white ceramic lamp with a gilded base, shaped like a cherub holding a giant pineapple on its head. The pineapple contains the light bulb, and is studded with yellow glass balls which let the light through.
This glorious piece has a matching hanging lamp which has a white ceramic, yellow ball-studded pineapple shade, but my husband will not put it up for me. 
I have to say, this lamp (and some other ugly things) belonged to my husband’s mom, and when I first saw them I was properly repulsed, but over time they’ve really grown on me. I just look at that lamp and marvel that someone conceived and created it, someone else bought it, and someone else didn’t throw it away. What were they all thinking? It blows my mind.
When you have a bunch of things that individually may be tacky if relocated to a more conservative decorating scheme but are part of a large collection of equally odd and tacky things, they stop being tacky and become ‘eclectic.’ Our house is eclectic, from the paper-mache skull in the den to the display of reproduction swords from The Lord of the Rings over the fireplace, all guarded by about 200 faerie, wizard and witch figurines and wall art and assorted pagan paraphernalia. Right now I think that having 2 televisions in the living room is tacky.
That. Is. Awesome.
Our tacky item is the elderly couch we inherited from the Other Shoe’s grandma. It has the most hideous fabric as its upholstery. However, despite its age it’s in pretty good shape - it sat in her formal front room and consequently got very little use. Despite its hideousness, it a) is extremely comfy for naps or middle-of-the-night insomnia, and b) was free.
We keep a few quilts thrown over it to hide some of the fabric, which looks like the prints they use on those ugle bedspreads at really cheap motels.
More picture please.
I’m all caught up at PeopleofWalmart and PeopleofPublicTransit and I need laugh at people’s personal choices!
One for sure - a brass and glass candle sconce. It has a mirror in the back and three glass sides. Where the vent is located (on top) used to sit a crown. I thought it might be improved if I took off the crown - nope - it’s still tacky as hell. It was my mother’s (she bought one for herself and my grandmother back in the 70’s - my grandmother had too much taste to ever hang it).
Sadly, I was about to toss it out when my husband remarked on how much he loved it - so up it went. It’s interesting that I’ve always thought my mother’s taste ran to the tacky but everything (small man in a suit of armor; giant footprint mat for wiping dirty shoes; strange multi-candled standing candelabra) are all loved and treasured by my husband. So they stay sigh.
You can catch a glimpse of my pineapple lamp in the background of this picture: Lilith5 | vamdpa42 | Flickr
That would go so well with my hula lamp! We could get them together and then lei each other.
tdn, you light up my life.
I found a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a house I moved into; I still have it. Sort of like this one–with glitter added. And a handcarved (sort of Mexican looking) frame & glass to protect the image.
A similar one decorated Father Ted’s rectory.
I thought it was a bright idea.
Everything in my house is tacky. Lots of made-in-China souvenirs from vacations (not vacations to China or to a low-cost injection molding facility). Lots of faded artwork of places we’ve never visited or of religious figures we don’t believe in or inspirational thoughts we’ve never read.
The worst is a play-dough stained-glass-wannabe mural of Tinker Bell. It’s the second thing visitors see when they enter my house. The first thing they see is the packaging picture of the play-dough mural of Tinker Bell, mounted on the wall in full view of my glass entry door. I love my kids, but my wife really needs to rethink what should be preserved as children’s “art.”
It’s not actually decorating my house, because I bought it for my dad and I’m just too lazy to actually mail it to him, but I have a little plastic battery-operated Jesus statuette that glows with shifting colors. I bought it outside a church in Manila, mostly because I think my dad would enjoy showing it to his best friend (who’s the world’s most lapsed Catholic). It was like a dollar.
OH. I do have, hanging on my wall, a very shiny icon of Our Lady of Guadalupe that I got from a vendor outside the Basilica of Our Lady in Mexico City. It’s actually pretty low-key by Our Lady standards, though - on the same trip, my cousin got an icon of her that’s like…in a glass box you can mount on the wall, with a bare light bulb in the bottom of the box that you can plug in. The whole thing is red and covered in spangles. It is extraordinarily classy.
I have a tacky room. Spare bedroom done in cowboy style because of a keepsake from my late brother – the cowboy boots he wore as a toddler. The wallpaper is plaid, the wallpaper border is cowboy boots. There’s a homespun quilt on the bed, a ceramic cactus (cookie jar) on a desk, and the piece de resistance is a lamp. The base is a cowboy with his feet soaking in a water trough, with his horse standing behind him.
I thought for sure I’d win the thread, but dang, guess not. You guys got some really tacky shit.
I definitely think some of you need to take photos and post 'em.