Christmas Tree Stand Makeover

We are so ready for the holidays in this house! We are so excited for Thanksgiving and Christmas! Especially now, since we just did a makeover on our Christmas tree stand!

Last year was the first year we got a real Christmas tree for our house, the year before that we were still moving everything in and it was chaos, so we didn’t get a tree. It was really sad. Never again.

So when we got the tree last year we realized we needed a tree stand…I was ready to go buy one at Lowe’s or Target, when Charlie said his parent’s had a metal one we could use. I was really excited until I saw it was huge and rusty. Charlie was so excited to use this because it really is huge and can hold a tree in place (I’ve seen too many Christmas trees fall over from a bad stand), so I said fine let’s use it. Well, we decided after using it once that it needs a huge makeover, it wasn’t very appealing to the eye (you’ll see what I mean below).

Here’s the stand before:

Yep. Wasn’t joking. It was rusted.

I prepped it for primer by sanding it down a bit.

I primed it with Rustoleum’s spray paint primer. I taped off the screws and handles.

I let it sit with the primer for 24 hours. It said let sit for 24-48 but I’m a rebel and only waited 24. It was fine. I then sprayed it with 2 coats of Rustoleum’s cherry red spray paint with a gloss finish. I used Rustoleum since it’s supposed to help prevent more future rust.

No more rust!

I then taped off the visible red sides of the stand, really making sure I covered everything. I then sprayed the “arms” of the stand with a metallic silver spray paint, again from Rustoleum. Charlie wanted me to make the stand to look like a wrapped Christmas present, what a creative man I’ve got myself here 😉

And here it is after the paper and tape was removed! Yes, this is the same Christmas tree stand people. Don’t be fooled.

And the big before and after…I don’t think you’re ready for this. The biggest before and after ever!

It’s perfect! For real, better than I imagined it would look like. I can’t wait to put a tree in this bad boy! And doesn’t it really kind of look like a wrapped Christmas present? If Charlie hadn’t said that, I probably would have made it solid red. I gotta say, it was a great idea. I’m super happy with the outcome.

Do you have an ugly Christmas tree stand? Give it a makeover and send me pics!