As the storied holiday poem goes, “The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Nick soon would be there…” But, like, what if you don’t have a chimney!? Where do you hang the stockings!? What’s St. Nick going to do!? In my old townhouse, I didn’t have a fireplace, so I just tacked my lonely stocking to a bookshelf in the living room with a nail…#BORING. So for those of you, mantle-less readers, today’s post is for you! This weekend project is the perfect solution for hanging your family’s stockings so that St. Nick can stuff them full of all of the festive goodies come Christmas morning.
SUPPLIES
- Stair Newel (Don’t worry, I didn’t know what a newel was either until I re-did my staircase!)
- Edge Glued Round (approximately 17 ¾” diameter)
- This can be found in the lumber department of your hardware store
- Wood screws (x5)
- Krylon® ColorMaster™ Paint + Primer in Gloss Cherry Red
- Krylon® ColorMaster™ Paint + Primer in Gloss Almond
- Krylon® can be found at your local Ace Hardware store
- Painter’s tape (varying widths)
- Trash bag
- Brass wall hooks (x2)
INSTRUCTIONS
To attach the stair newel to the wooden round, I drilled five long wood screws through the bottom of the round into the base of the newel, and voila! A stand!
To paint the stand, I started with Krylon ColorMaster Paint + Primer in Gloss Almond . Following the application and safety instructions on the can, I shook the can for 1-2 minutes before use, and sprayed 6”-8” from the stand using a sweeping motion back and forth. Since wood is more porous than most materials, the stand required three coats for full coverage. Krylon ColorMaster Paint + Primer dries in about 10 minutes, so I applied the additional second and third coats every 10 – 15 minutes. Fortunately, the weather was cool and dry when I was painting, so that helped with drying time!
To create my ‘design’ I needed to use painter’s tape, and I wanted to make sure that the first color was 100% dry before applying anything to it so that product didn’t peel off when I removed the tape. That being said, I waited to apply tape and plastic until the following morning. Using three different widths of painter’s tape, I created a candy cane swirl down the middle part of the stand. I covered the top of the post and bottom round with the plastic trash bag and taped them off to protect them from getting any red paint on them.
Once everything was taped off, I repeated the above painting process with Krylon ColorMaster Paint + Primer in Gloss Cherry Red. Since the stand already had a few coats of the Gloss Almond on it, it only required two coats of Krylon® ColorMaster Paint + Primer in Cherry Red Gloss, to achieve the perfect amount of coverage. Again, Krylon ColorMaster Paint + Primer dries in about 10 minutes and is safe to handle in an hour. After the paint was dry to the touch, I removed the tape to reveal my masterpiece!
After I patted myself on the back for a paint job well done, I needed a way to actually hang the stockings. I used two brass wall hooks and screwed them in on either side of the top of the stand.
Now, all that was left to do was hang my stockings and wait for ol’ St. Nick to fill them with treats. Here’s hoping that his sleigh stocked with a bottle of wine or two, because after this year I’m going to need it!! What are you hoping for this Christmas?
