I have to start this post by saying my words will not do this story justice and I should have taken pictures but it was one of the last things on my mind. Last night Ben and I left Isaiah with his grandparents to spend the night and we came home to wrap Christmas presents and to put Micah to bed. Now one of my favorite things is sitting by a fire, enjoying the soft glow that comes from the Christmas tree lights and wrapping Christmas gifts. Just helps getcha in the Christmas spirit. So thats exactly what we did. Micah was asleep and I had Ben make us a fire in our fireplace. We had it cleaned last year but it has never been used. With the weather in memphis being unbelievably cold and never knowing when it could shoot back up to 70 again, we decided last night would be the perfect night.
We had a starter log that we had bought from last year and had it burning very well for about 30 minutes. Then came the craziness...Ben and I both started noticing a nice haze in our living room and then the most annoying noise that you have ever heard in your life started blaring, the smoke dectetor. Reminds me of that scene in Dumb and Dumber where Harry and Lloyd are driving in the van with Joe and Lloyd says, "Hey! Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?" and proceeds to scream, well that is what our smoke dectector sounds like just 10 times worse.
For the next hour, Ben and I are running around like crazy people opening all the doors and windows in our house (mind you, its like 30 degrees outside), bringing fans out from our closet, and dousing water on our makeshift fire. We have towels that we are using to fan the smoke outside through the windows and doors (talk about a funny sight) and I am jumping up and down in front of our smoke dectetor with one of Ben's shirts trying to fan the smoke away so that the noise will finally shut off. Our eyes and mouth are burning from all the smoke and we can barely see each other across the room. If you had been driving by, you would have thought the house was burning down.
We managed to get all the ashes and embers outside and remove all the billowing smoke from our house. Today the house is now breathable but all our furniture and clothes smell like what else...smoke. Lesson learned. The vent that opens from the top of chimney needs to be open when you start a fire. So much for assuming.
PS.Micah slept through the whole thing!
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2 comments:
You poor thing!! I did this exact same thing in college!! I forgot to open the vent and decided since it was 25% outside, it would be nice to start a fire. I spent an hour trying to figure out how to get the battery out of smoke detector so it would stop going off, all while having every door in the apartment open. It was FREEZING. For whatever it's worth, it will be really funny for years to come.
:)
Oh my goodness! Jon started a fire in our fireplace once w/o opening the flue. It was quite comedic. Our white mantle got covered in black ash. It smelled for a little while, but I think everything eventually aired out. Merry Christmas!
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