Hi fellow Hiveians,

The other day we got our awesome Christmas Tree! What unfortunately ended up happening though, the tree fell over in the middle of the night LOL! No one got hurt thankfully but I knew I had to do some quick repairs so the tree wouldn't die!

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So it was a pretty scary thing to have happen. With all of this remote working stuff, we had to convert our sons room into an office for my wife's business but also so I can have my computer setup in one spot with my monitors and stuff. This means that we had to convert a portion of our living room into a sleeping space for the little man. That also means it was right next to the tree! Thank god it was far enough away that he was unscathed, he actually slept through the entire thing unfazed by it hahaha. Sleeps like his dad used to! My wife is an incredibly light sleeper but when I was a kid I slept entirely through a helicopter landing right outside my parents house lmao.

So when we put up the tree, it was a lot heavier than we thought it would be but we hoped the stand would be sufficient to keep it. That wasn't completely accurate! It toppled right over lol thankfully it wasn't too big of a mess or hassle.

First thing I did was make it easier on my fingers to twist the things off. A fun little tip if you have to use your fingers to hand-twist these types of bolts off, add some leverage to the end of it and it makes it LOADS easier. Work smarter not harder!

So now that the tree was out it came time to put the stand on the piece of plywood that I bought. I wasn't completely thrilled with the size of the plywood but it's big enough to add some extra space to the frame and keep it sturdier than it was before. The stand already had a few holes in it designed for this purpose so that was nice!

Apparently I didn't take a picture of it but I drilled some extra holes in the top part of the rim. The bottom inner part is designed to catch water and not let it spill all over the ground, which is nice. Didn't want to mess that up! I drilled 4 holes across the whole stand in these spots to put in some extra long screws.

Once I had the holes drilled, it was time to start putting in some screws to give it some strength. I had a 3/4 in sheet of plywood so I couldn't use long screws so I opted for some thick ones.

Now came time for the screws with the washers. The washer might not have been completely necessary but it added a little height to the screw which helped out later on but it also gave it more room to spread out the pressure load of the screw-head, keeping it a little more secure than without it.

I had to approximate how long I needed the screw to be. These were 2 and a half inch long screws so I didn't want to use ones too long. The plywood was 3/4 in thickness and the stand was a bit over an inch but I didn't necessarily measure it. It goes by eye sometimes if it's not that serious lol, and I totally eyeballed it.

When I was screwing in the bolts I needed to use a few different bolt heads. To start the small thick screws I needed to use the one on the right that was deeper to get it going. Once it was going I then swapped it for the one on the left, the thick flat-head. The middle one was too big for the thick screws but it was perfect for the black drywall screws so it's always good to have more tools, I swear! :D

I used my lovely impact-gun electric drill to screw the screws down. These are such a nice thing to have, they don't strip the screws the way a regular screw gun does so it saves a lot of swearing and headaches, trust me!

Now that the bolts were on it was time to take a look. I ended up using 12 screws all together, 4 on the top section and 8 around the bottom. I'm really hoping that it is sufficient now!

One thing I had to check since we have a small child, is to make sure the screws didn't go through the wood. Sure enough they did! I had to chop the tips off and try to file them down so they weren't sharp. They were poking out just a small amount so I know the screw might have been a little too long but you wouldn't be able to find one that fits perfect so I would rather go a little further than be too short.

One of the best tools to have are these incredibly versatile wire nips. They are an electricians savior in some cases, I used them so much working with my dad. They are great for low clearance situations like this, just bring the tips forward and snip the piece off you don't want. The screws are incredibly hard so it took a little bit but definitely worth it to not have those giant things sticking out.

Nice and snipped off. Not flush with the wood but a lot better now!

Came time to pop the tree back in. Looking back on it all, I should have trimmed the bottom of the tree a little more but that's okay, it's still better than nothing!

The end result, a few hours after I took all of the above pictures, was that we wanted to strengthen it a little more with some 2x4 pieces of wood lol. We didn't want to ruin the tree but we bolted them down into the plywood and rested them on the tree underneath some branches. Satisfies the strength but doesn't kill the tree!

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