The Box of Protection

I have this really cool ornament storage box which is made out of cardboard. It has drawers with separations that can be altered to fit the ornaments you store in it. The problem is, it's cardboard, and it's old, and it's not exactly sturdy.

When Apricot back in December landed on it jumping from the cat tree, I could see the sides bow out. Oops. Apparently I needed some kind of protection for it.

So for Christmas my brother made me a wooden box that surrounds it and protects it from the impact of landing cats. If an eleven pound cat like Apricot caused the sides to flex out, what in the world would two full sized Maine Coons landing on it do?

Unfortunately, I'm really ultra sensitive to the smell of paint drying. You might not even know that it takes normal paint months to fully dry. I believe it's called curing. But I can smell it the whole time, and it's the kind of smell that makes my head feel funny and compromises mental processes ... and I don't need any more help in that area!

My parents live in a house with a basement that they could leave the wooden box in to cure by itself without driving me crazy. They very nicely allowed me to do just that. And, to make life better, my mom, who can paint flowers and stuff on furniture (I already have a chest of drawers in the pink room that she decorated) painted the front of the box with little tiny flowers and leaves and hearts (as per my request!)

I got to bring it home two weekends ago. It finally stopped smelling like curing paint!

Thimble's the model. This shows you the whole thing (almost)

Colby's the model for the closeup of the painting

It's just such a nice ornament box; it holds almost all of mine, in a nice organized way. I've searched for something similar in a more supportive material, and I've searched for years, but I've never seen anything like it. So I'm very glad I have the ability to protect it from the accidental damages done by heavy weights landing on it.