My Red Cabinet

After putting the fabric panels in and looking at the cabinet for three days, I decided I liked the cabinet better with just the dark interior. And after sewing a panel, putting it on spring rods, and covering the space on the lower part, I took it off to leave that space open. Sometimes I shake my head over the hours invested in a project and that investment not being followed through on, but in the end, what do those hours really matter? They were my hours to give. 

Now we have a nice piece added to our kitchen/dining space. It offers a coziness that was missing, and it also gave me a space to display Lovely Beautiful Daughter's soup bowls made for Empty Bowls. Other pieces in the cabinet came from our travels: to China, to Costa Rica, and to Florida. It's a cabinet full of memories.

While I was working on it, another memory was created, one we will laugh over for many, many years. Christmas day, I was putting on the final coating of wax then sanding to get the smooth, aged texture that shows up much better than what can be seen in the photo. At one point, I did a sniff, sniff, smelling what seemed to me to be a strong, natural gas odor. Angel Baby was in the living room, watching TV, and he had the gas fireplace going. I thought maybe I was just smelling it, though we'd been using the fireplace for weeks and had never smelled anything like this the whole time. A few minutes later, the odor was even stronger. I turned off the fireplace, and the smell began to dissipate. I continued on with my waxing and sanding. Several hours later, Hubby came in and started a burner on the gas stove to cook dinner. The strong, natural gas odor wafted through the kitchen/dining area again. Concerned, Hubby called the gas company. They advised us to get out of the house, so the boys, the dog, and I went to the garage (detached and separated from the house by a side yard). Gas Company Guy showed up quickly and walked through the house with Hubby. They checked the furnace, the fireplaces, and the stove. Nothing was registering as being abnormal on Gas Company Guy's gas meters. In fact, he was quite impressed with how little carbon monoxide was coming from the fireplace flame. Then he looked around and asked, "Is someone doing crafts?" Hubby showed him my paint and waxes being used on the cabinet. "It's the wax," Gas Company Guy said. He went on to explain how the wax has a petroleum base, and the fumes from it were mixing with the heat from the fireplace. The warmer the fumes got, the more a vapor was being created. That's what we were smelling. "It's harmless," he assured Hubby. When Hubby came to rescue us from the garage, he got quite the laugh over me and my "crafts" causing such a stir on Christmas day.

Comments

J said…
:) Ha! Nothing like a memorable crafting moment to put Christmas 2012 into the family history books!
JK said…
You got that right! The boys and I had so much fun in the garage. The oldest one said, "We need to have gas leaks more often." I completely agree!

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