The Tilt

The house, as the subtitle indicates, tilts. This isn't much of a problem until you try and build a bathroom on the second floor, at which point the angle is so vertiginous that in order to counteract it and make sure the water flows down the plughole, the floor needs to incline like the red line:

That means that in the other corner, which hangs over the staircase with no visible means of support, we'd have to pour up to 15 cm of concrete. This they felt might be too heavy for the poor old house, so they sat and thought about it, wondering how to shave off an inch here and there by introducing an Escher print worth of steps. Here my nonexistent training in the building trade kicked in and I suggested we lay a lot of old wood on the floor instead and pour the minimum necessary concrete around it. Ood's wise man, the mad plumber, rejoiced, congratulated me several times, the dog (also present) relaxed with a sigh into a pile of brick dust, and so it was agreed. We'll apparently add some steel mesh to stabilize it in case the wood proves temperamental, and the problem's solved.

I felt like an engineering 'major' and have therefore decided to promote myself. The Principal's history, say hello to the Major.

Meanwhile the plumbing's all done. Notice the bathtub on the right (10,000 baht from one of Chinatown's last coopers):

And this will be the washstand (3,500 baht from a man on the road to the airport who makes things from old wood):

Really they work hard, fast and well, and Ood now has the sense to double-check before he does anything drastic, which is all I ask.

PS: Now I'm thinking bamboo would be even lighter, but maybe that's tempting fate.