How I Accidentally Built a Color Tree Installation Inside a Design Gallery

I did not set out to sell Christmas trees.

That part matters.

What I was actually doing was moving furniture, resetting sightlines, chasing the usual quiet goal of keeping a design space calm and intentional while the rest of the world ramps up into full holiday chaos. You know the drill. Inflatable Santas. Plastic garland. Loud red and green everywhere. None of it belongs in a modern showroom, and none of it fits the way people actually live now.

Then these showed up.

Bright blue. Deep purple. Shock red. Pink. A rainbow that looks like it escaped a theme park parade and wandered into a design gallery by mistake.

We stood them up by the windows, just to get them out of the boxes. No ornaments. No tinsel. No fuss. And immediately the room changed.

This wasn’t Christmas retail.
The room had gone somewhere else without asking permission.

The trees read less like holiday décor and more like a temporary installation. Pop art. Color study. A weirdly joyful interruption that somehow still respected clean lines, negative space, and modern interiors. Against the glass, with the neighborhood lights outside and the sky shifting at sunset, they started doing something unexpected. People stopped. Cars slowed down. Phones came out.

That’s when it clicked.

This wasn’t about selling Christmas trees.
This was about discovering a styling opportunity hiding in plain sight.

Color Trees as Modern Holiday Decor

In a world of neutral interiors, walnut furniture, concrete floors, and clean white walls, color has become the rarest luxury. These trees work because they don’t pretend to be traditional. They don’t apologize for being artificial. They don’t try to look “real.”

They behave like objects.

Sculptural. Vertical. Saturated.

They feel right in:

• modern homes and apartments

• lofts and studios

• creative offices

• retail windows

• neighborhood holiday light displays

• pop-up installations

• even large-scale holiday décor projects and themed environments

I’ve had more than one person walk in and say some version of, “This feels like something you’d see at a holiday light festival or a theme park installation.”

They’re not wrong.

Why This Works (And Why It Surprised Me)

Most Christmas décor is designed to disappear into tradition. These do the opposite. They declare themselves. They turn the holiday moment into something graphic and intentional. You don’t decorate them so much as you place them.

A purple tree becomes a focal point.
A red one anchors a room.
A blue one cools everything down.
The rainbow one feels like a wink.

No ornaments required. Lights optional. The color does the work.

And because they’re artificial and boxed, they’re practical. Easy pickup. Easy setup. Easy teardown. No needles. No mess. No regrets in January.

Sizes, Scale, and Real-World Use

Seeing them together made scale obvious in a way product photos never do.

• 5 ft works for apartments, bedrooms, studios, tabletop-adjacent spaces.

• 6 ft is the most flexible, living rooms, offices, retail counters.

• 7 ft starts to feel architectural.

• 8 ft becomes a statement, perfect for windows, lobbies, and public-facing displays.

This is the same logic used in holiday installations, visual merchandising, and themed décor environments. Height matters. Color carries farther than detail.

A Limited Drop, Not a Catalog

This isn’t a permanent category. There is no shipping. No checkout buttons. No endless restocks.

These are here now, boxed and ready for pickup at Design Consignment Gallery in San Diego. Availability shifts as colors and sizes find homes. When this run ends, the moment passes and the gallery returns to its baseline.

That impermanence is exactly what gives the installation its charge.

If you’re decorating a modern home, building a neighborhood holiday display, styling a retail window, planning a seasonal pop-up, or sourcing bold holiday décor for an event or themed environment, this is one of those rare moments where the right object shows up at exactly the right time.

I didn’t plan it. I just noticed it when it happened.

And sometimes that’s the best kind of design discovery.

📍 How to See Them

The Color Tree Drop is on view now at Design Consignment Gallery.
All purchases are made in person or by phone for local pickup.
Trees are boxed, easy to transport, and ready to go.

If you want to talk sizes, colors, or ideas for your space, just ask.
This one’s meant to be experienced, not scrolled past.

—
Matthew