Friday, August 12, 2022

CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST TRASH TO TREASURE

 Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Here is one of the latest!

So it was recon time and this time I figured I'd get a picture to let you all see where I look.  This is where people put boxes and recyclable type trash.  This was this past weekend.

A Christmas tree part of some sort.  Hmm, maybe a small tree?  Upon closer examination however, I found  another section under a box and then another and yet another.  I gathered them up and took them to the other end by the freight elevators and laid them out.

It is a pre-lit artificial tree.  VERY large.

Four sections (our current one only has three sections and it seems big, you can see it HERE).

Each section plugged into the other and so I did that and plugged it in.


Beautiful white lights all came on except for one side of one section.  This may be why someone discarded it.  The fact that it's August probably also means they were moving out and just decided "remember, the lights don't work in one section" and so they trashed it.

We're hoping that when the time comes to put it up and use it, we can play around with the lights and maybe find a loose wire that will get them to come back on.  But worst case and they don't come on?  Well, we could just add some lights to that one section.


This is my arm stretched upwards as high as I could reach and it's still not to the top.  This tree is easily 10 to 12 feet tall and a large diameter at the base.


Here is a closeup.

It is a good quality tree with different types of branches and even little pinecones as decorations all over.  The lights are LED and white.

Back when my Mom was alive, we had at least two trees every year.  One with personal memories of things (trips, events, etc) and one with standard collected ornaments (like the ones we use now).

We got rid of those two when we took a break on decorating after she passed and now that we're excited to be decorating again, the trees seem to be falling in our laps.  This will become the fourth tree we've found since we moved here.  We now have:

4 foot
6 foot
8 foot
10+ foot

We're thinking of bringing back the tree of memories by using one in the bedroom, a food/cooking theme tree in the kitchen or dining room, a regular large and grand tree with our beautiful ornaments in the living room and a 4th one somewhere else...theme to be decided!

All free discards!  We'll give them a great future.


8 comments:

  1. AWESOME!
    Check the bulbs as one just may be loose or burned out.
    That is so pretty with the pinecones. Would be pretty having red cardinal birds picks on there and adding some faux berry picks here and there on the tree.
    Some birds have clips on them that you can just slip right onto the branches.
    Can find a variety of picks at Michaels or Hobby Lobby. Right now Hobby Lobby are in process of getting their decorations out

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  2. What a wonderful find! I bet you'll get the lights working, if not it's easy to string a new strand on that section! You're home is going to look wonderful this Christmas.

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  3. Do you have room in the bathroom for the little one? Or, put one at the farm so you will have a Christmas tree there this year.

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  4. First thing that came to mind for the 4th one was a Hobart tree! He deserves one of his own because #notspoiled

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  5. Home Depot has a tool that you can use to check the incandescent lights it’s not very expensive and should help you find the loose bulb or just wrap white lights over that section. You could even change tree themes. Do a Texas tree or a Santa theme tree, perhaps your favorite show I’ve seen cool Harry Potter trees or a nascar tree, or sports tree with favorite team colors. Lots of possibilities! Great score!

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  6. If the light problem can't be found, I have to wonder how odd it would look if that section were simply left out? Especially when fully decorated it might not be missed at all.

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  7. I have a tree with lights out in one section. I decided it was not worth my time to check each connection so I just put a string of lights there and no one but me knows.
    BTW I put up a minimum of 4 trees each Christmas. Life is short and I enjoy the festive look, so I might as well indulge my likes!

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  8. Seems like your mom is happy that you are decorating for Christmas again – she sure is sending a lot of freebie Christmas trees your way! A 10+ footer this time!

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