MIL has given us a massive picture I really don’t like

[BillyButterfly]

More of a what would you do? Moved into our new home. MIL has bought a massive (truly massive- think full wall) picture which is really not my taste as a gift. Not sure tbh if she has deliberately given it knowing I would hate it but feel compelled to display it. Using the excuse that we are decorating at the moment but she keeps asking where we will be putting it. She is the type to be really difficult if I told the truth. Would I be unreasonable to accidentally break it?

Turnedouttoes

You need to nip this in the bud right now or it will continue. Mine is a hoarder and is just addicted to buying stuff. Now that she has no more space she buys it for our house instead.

We have been gifted a giant framed picture of a skull shock and another that we’ve managed to give away but she keeps asking about. Fortunately DP has learnt to be strict about it as he hates tat and clutter but she’s forever trying to give us truly awful bits and bobs

Art is fraught. We had a relative give us

See that sounds right up my street, @Turnedouttoes, just call me an ageing goth 😂

Just get your DH to say he hates it. She has to forgive him, he's her son! Job done.

Your husband should take it back to her house and leave it there. She's got a bloody nerve!

You’re very welcome to it @Messagetoyoucassie
It’s similar to this

@Thehop it still cracks me up . It was a particularly lovely bright vulva!

Haha that’s funny, DH needs to send it back with the instructions he has to say that HE isn’t keen on it, time for him to take one for the team.

@Pieceofpurplesky

My ex bil is a little naive in the world of anything arty. He bought me a picture that he thought was lovely and colourful, knowing I like quite wild and bright stuff.

It was a beautiful purple vulva.

Amazing.

Where did you hang it?

Our former nanny did this. Before she left she asked me for a photo of us all together because she was making a gift - I sent her one assuming, you know, a mug or coasters or jigsaw or something.

On her last day her husband had to drop her off in his van so she could transport the most enormous oil painting that she had had her friend do of us. But as we hadn’t posed for it, it was just a carbon copy of the photo I’d sent, with one of my children randomly in school uniform, me with my hair up in a messy bun, DH comedically leering over us all from behind the sofa.

This vignette was transcribed pixel by pixel into oil and stretched across a canvas larger than anything else in our home! Hideous is not the word. The children could barely keep straight faces and the nanny was weeping with joy at my dumbstruck reaction.

We love her dearly but thank god she’s thousands of miles away now and not likely to drop in and wonder where the picture is!!! (I think it’s in the garage.....)

She was young and naive. Your MiL has no excuse. You do NOT give people art for their home unless specifically requested!

DH should deal with this. My MIL buys stuff for our house which is totally unsuitable and then throws a fit if we move it or she can't see it in pictures. Get DH to deal with her. It's just her way of imposing her style in your home with HER SON.

Dont spill paint on it, she may just replace it as you would sound gutted, just get DH to do it

I was hoping it was a huge canvas picture of a Thomas Kincaid painting, with incorporated fairylights, My nan has one (it's about 4ft x 3ft) and I always admire it to be polite. I'm hoping she doesn't leave it me in her will - she's nearly 98 after all. If I donate it to a charity shop, she'll probably haunt it and make those fairylights flash on and off at random times.

I thought you meant photo as to me picture means phot. I thought it wasn't that bad thinking family photo. Which could be meant with good intentions. But a painting or a print that big is really odd. Does she often try to dominate?

Now, Messagetoyoucassie. A SKULL sounds right up my street!

Mumsnet terrible art swap anyone?

Unfortunately the only piece of are I’ve eve been gifted was so well judged, it has pride of place and I absolutely love it 🤣

*art

• ever

I think your H has to man up and talk to his mum. Mum, thanks for the thought but the painting really isn’t out style at all. Do you still have th receipt? If not, maybe you’d like to hang it somewhere in your home.

MIL loves buying lots of shit, dressed up as ‘oh it’s for the DGC’ I take it back to the shop, and buy something larger and more hideous and give it to her citing ‘oh but the DHC wanted to get it for you,

It quickly stopped when i gifted her a beautiful 4ft plastic gnome dressed as a mermaid.

Those Thomas Kincaid paintings really get on my tits.

EVERYTHING is in flower on them. It looks so wrong.

We had to have a very honest conversation with PIL about differing taste when they bought us Edinburgh crystal glasses which we didn't like. They did it out of kindness because they have a full cabinet of the stuff.

We are Ikea £1 a glass people, maybe they thought we were too poor to buy Edinburgh crystal but we had to thank them and explain that whilst they are lovely they are just not us.

A few years later they were bought a truly hideous painting that you plugged in and a fan spun to give the illusion that the waterfall in the painting was moving. They hated it but loved the person who gifted it. We told them if they hang that up and it is seen they will end up with a matching set the next Christmas I don't know what happened to it but I never saw it again.

Get your Dh to be honest about it.

That's such an aggressive thing to do.

I'm sorry you've been put in this picture. You and your OH have to deal with it I'm afraid. Otherwise she will feel able to do this again and again.

God I'm glad I don't have a MIL.

But *Leimar..

If it’s this one I’ll swapsies for it

Definitely your husband’s problem. However, giving her the benefit of the doubt, is it possible that she is excited about your new home and has bought it thinking “I’d love that if only I had a big enough/lovely enough house to hang it in” and has sort of projected that on to the two of you, so is giving it as a genuine expression of how lovely she thinks your new place is and how well her boy has done for himself. If you see what I mean.

I’m loving the story of the nanny and the oil painting 😀.

This is your MiL marking her territory - a bit like a dog pees up a tree. Although I'm sure you and your DH are equal partners, she will see this as his house, which you're lucky enough to share for the moment

Your DH has to tell her no thank you and send it back.

We were moving and for DH’s birthday, MIL gave DH a watercolour painting that she’d asked someone to do of our house as a momento. I hated it and found it very negative as we were moving on and didn’t want to look back at a house we used to live in. We moved and it never went up. DH has forgotten about it and she’s never mentioned it in the past 5 years we’ve lived here. Something so big has to be mentioned by your DH

Have you seen that episode of Friends where phoebe gives that hideous painting to Monica?

Make a more hideous one like that back for her

I would be honest and say it's not to your taste but she obviously likes it so would she like it gor her house? Better than ruining it