How DO you fit a 26ft tree into a semi?
Easy, just saw it in three then put the pieces on two floors ... and the roof!
IF IT feels like your Christmas tree’s taking over the living room, here’s something to leave it in the shade.
Inventor Colin Furze has squeezed a 26ft Norway spruce into his semi-detached home.
Viewed from the street, the tree appears to start on the ground floor, then force its way into the room above and finally break through the roof.
In fact, Mr Furze cut it into three sections before installing it – but getting it into the house was still a monster undertaking.
Mr Furze, 38, of Stamford, Lincolnshire, first had to wrap rope around the branches to take it into the three-bedroom property without scratching the walls.
He then chopped the tree into three and put the bottom section in his lounge, the middle one in his bedroom above and the top part directly above on the roof.
Mr Furze, renowned for his inventions including the world’s fastest mobility scooter with a top speed of 71mph, said: ‘I’d never seen anyone do anything like this before so I thought it would be a fun Christmas project.
‘My children, who are two and six, couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw the huge tree and absolutely loved it.
‘We managed to get it into the house relatively easily, but it was hard manoeuvring it up the stairs and over the banisters.’
He had to move a sofa out of the lounge so he could fit the tree into the room, with the branches touching the walls.
Then he squeezed the second part of the tree into the space beside his bed – although he finds it difficult to lie down and the fallen needles could make for an uncomfortable night.
He secured the final eight feet of the tree on the roof and then decorated the whole tree with fairy lights. ‘The tree dropped needles everywhere, but the result was really impressive and worked very well,’ he added.
Mr Furze has won himself 5.5million YouTube fans thanks to his wacky inventions, which have also included a jet bicycle, the world’s longest motorbike, a hoverbike, a 107mph dodgem car and a swing that rotates through 360 degrees.
One item not on his list is a device for removing all that annoying glitter from Christmas cards – but thanks to a move by Waitrose he may not need to.
The supermarket chain said yesterday that it is banning glitter from its own-brand Christmas cards, crackers, wrapping, tags and other festive products in a move against plastic pollution.
Three quarters of the products are already glitter free for this Christmas and the retailer has promised to completely remove the tiny plastic pieces by next year, or use an environmentally friendly alternative.
A Waitrose spokesman said: ‘Reducing the impact of plastics on the environment is something our customers care passionately about.’ The move is part of a wider public backlash against single-use throwaway plastic.