The Christmas Chair ~ how I do it.

Here is how it all starts. In 2014 I thought I'd try something a bit different. The same old Christmas tree was boring. I wandered about the old shed looking for something when I spied this old chair.
It had been painted several times and at one point I'd even thought about fixing the crack in the seat and maybe stripping it and repainting it.

This time I looked at it differently. The layers of paint, the scrape marks, and the fact that it didn't sit quite straight made it a perfect candidate for something.
I cleaned it up and brought it in the house. And thus the Christmas chair was born.

I had/have a very tiny house. Most years I shoved my cheap little tree up against the wall and only decorated the front half of it.

Step 1. Put out the chair. Simple and easy.
Step 2. Take an old round vinyl table cloth and use it as a skirt. It also covers up the gas pipe that comes into the house to the heater.
Step 3. Make sure that Morris supervises. Oh and take time to set out the dinosaur toys. I don't know why, but I thought they should be part of it. Place the tree next to the chair.
Step 4. Add some garland to the chair and start fitting branches onto the tree. Don't cover up the chair. I make this up as I go...
Step 5. This year I used the leftover branches from the partial tree to fill in the gaps.
Step 6. Toss in some boxes. The top item is the kitchen junk drawer from the original kitchen in the house. It is sitting on a bolts box I found in the dirt in the little shed.
Step 7. Take time out for some tea and play with the dinosaurs.
Step 8. It is out of order. But you can see the old vinyl table cloth and the old white rug that I set out to be a tree 'skirt' and box border.

Next sort out the lights. Of course I didn't have the lights I wanted. So I put the red string on the tree and used a white string around the boxes.

Things looked sort of okay as I started to add ornaments and hand made toys. But the lighting wasn't right.

However the bright new light colored wood on the wall is fantastic. The small room feels so much more cheery.

A quick reminder of what this section of the old house looked like...

Yuck.

Anyway here is a view of the living room with the tree from the stairs.
Pardon the Jack Russell toys that Morris left out.

The carpeting will be removed next year and the floor will be replaced. But for this winter this is it!

Here is the tree. Yes I added some more lights to make it cheery.
In case you haven't noticed, I like horse ornaments and teddy bears. These bears I made quite a few years ago. The pine cones were picked up out of the yard and painted and touched up with glitter glue.

On the chair is a carousel horse and an aluminum horse bit. I also save the unique gift labels that my daughter in law makes and add them to my collection.

Below are two of my horse ornaments I have collected from Westland Giftware.

And that is it! The Christmas Chair is up.
I'll be rearranging everything constantly. It just suits me to do so.