Pure Decorative Value

So, I saw a cute wire birdcage at a resale shop the other day and have been thinking about it since then. Christmas is coming up and I broached the subject with my husband today about getting it and having it in our home as decoration. His response was less than enthusiastic.
I realize that he likes to visualize things, so I pulled up some photos of ones that I've seen before and thought that would help. I think it may have hindered, because the word he came out with was "tacky." To which I asked him to replace with the word whimsical.
As I sit here and drink my coffee, I started thinking about all the decorations in our home and to be honest, I can't think of a single thing in our house that serves the sole purpose of being decorative. Which is exactly what a big wire birdcage is, pure decoration. The majority of our decorations are functional or multipurpose. We don't even have a coffee table, because let's be honest, who puts coffee on them any more? They are just there to hold books and junk that no one ever looks at. We have bowls and antique coffee grinders and pictures with scripture on them. We have memories captured on film within our photo frames, we have canisters that should hold kitchen wares. Everything has a purpose beyond creating beauty in our home.
I guess it's got me wondering if I really do want to enter into the realm of accumulating things for pure decorative value. I'm not EVER planning on getting a bird. I find them quite disgusting, but I love the old cages with their craftsmanship and the whimsy of discovering what's inside. But is that enough of a reason to bring something as big as I was thinking into our home? Maybe I should start small and go from there.
I blame all of this on the influence of my daughter who collects things based purely on the fact that she wants to display them in her room. Rocks, stuffies, you name it, she wants it to be beautiful just for the sake of beauty. She needs no function in her beauty. I think Joel and I could both learn something from that attitude, if we didn't have to deal with organizing and tidying it on a daily basis :)

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