Several years ago -- maybe six or eight or so -- I made a Christmas tree.

Backstory: We collect Christmas ornaments--lots and lots of ornaments, and many of them a special, cute, cool, hold special memories, and more. The Christmas ornaments have been a big deal for Jane and me over the years. And so, when we had a live tree, I would spend hours and hours -- a full day -- trimming out branches to make room for ornaments. Some are large and heavy. You can't just loop it on the tip of a branch. You need support. After about 20 years of buying live trees, timming them mercilessly, and having them take up a major portion of the living room, I had an idea.

The Prototype

I made a big A-frame out of 1x2s, attached ten or so branches that had fallen from trees in our backyard, stained the a-frame, varnished the branches, attached it to a wall in the living room, and called it a Christmas tree. It worked. Quite magnificently, in fact. It was a great way to display our ornaments. Here is what it looked like.

But--it was not easy to assemble, and it was a pain to store. The a-frame was eight feet long. The branches formed a clumsy, awkward bundle. It did not fit easily anywhere.

I had a thought that something better could be done.

The Étagère

I discarded my original A-frame tree about three years ago and made some sketches for a replacement version. But at least two years went by without getting the job done.

This year, I finally executed the plan.

It worked! The tree is great, takes up just a small amount of space, and is an excellent place to hang ornaments. The dictionary definition of étagère is "a piece of furniture consisting of a set of open shelves for displaying small objects," so I have taken to calling it a "Christmas Ornament Étagère." But most of the time, I just think of it as a "tree."

To-Do List for Next Year

The spotlights on our "antique" Lillian Vernon treetop angel are too bright. I need to diffuse and dim them a bit. The LEDs don't get very hot, so making a smaller opening for the light would work.

I used three strings of led lights on the tree, but one was warm white and the other two were bright white. Next year I'll have all warm white lights.

We didn't know how our cats, Emma and Phoebe, would react to the tree. Would it become an excellent climbing toy? Cat furniture? So far, they have shown little interest in that. There was some exploration of the lowest branch, but all in all, they are leaving it alone. So next year, we can feature some of the larger and more fragile ornaments. This year's tree has between half and two-thirds of the total stash. Next year, I expect to put more effort into the decorating/display bit.

The Whole Story

Scroll down this page for images, more details about how the tree is assembled, and more. If you're interested in staling this idea, please feel free to get in touch. I'll be happy to share my experience working on it.

And for what it's worth, with the price of good-quality artificial trees running in the several hundreds of dollars (I was shocked when I saw some prices), this kind of tree might even be a business opportunity.

Enjoy.