Wooden Bathtub (Wa)#DIY

Wa (ཝ) is a wooden tub that's generally used for hot-stone baths. It's an outdoor thing, but I have always wanted one that I could keep in my bathroom. I have asked my brother Samtey to make me one in his furniture house in Punakha. It took a while, but he finally delivered it early this year between the two lockdowns. 

 

I loved it, but his version was not the traditional shape that I wanted. The base area was equal to that of the mouth, which took a lot of water to fill. My 50-litre geyser was useless. So I planned to remodel it to suit my taste. 

My Remodeling Plan

It was a scary experience. I was tearing apart a well-made tub without even knowing if I would be able to put it back into the shape and size I wanted. I was ambitious. I liked the Wa to have some modern features to make it easy to use. 

I cut off almost half of the original tub and achieved my desired shape. It looked great. But because of the angles I have added to the structure, I had to play around with slopes on all the sides, including the bottom part that comes into contact with the base. I added a waste coupling to make draining easy.

When testing with water, there were multiple leaks. It seemed like a failure. Thanks to my indigenous knowledge, I know the leaks are normal. There are two ways to contain them;
1. stuff the gaps with cloth pieces using a sharp object

2. keep the tub filled with water. The leaks will disappear gradually.

I tried a new trick. I applied silicone sealant. More than half the leaks were gone. The tub was still leaking. Then the good old method of keeping it filled with water solved the rest. Now my bathroom smells of a sweet pine tree. 

Inside of the Wa

The Wa in my bathroom

This interesting project gave me the confidence and desire to do more. I have worked on over six small projects. The Wa project is the second biggest and my second favourite. The number one on my list is an unusual bed concept I worked on:- Floating Bed. 

Four Simple #DIY Projects

During the lockdown, the two things that I avoided were thinking about the lockdown and talking or writing about the lockdown. I didn't want to pretend not to be affected by it. I rather didn't want it to affect me. I set out to work on some carpentry projects to keep myself busy. I didn't know I was good at it. Maybe I wasn't good at it first but as I did more projects I improved. It surprised me and my wife. 

3 Shelves for the kitchen

I found a dozen bottles of oil and sauces behind the gas stove. They are there because of the frequency of use. Placing them any further from there could disrupt the process of preparing food, therefore I built a single layer shelf right behind the gas stove. 

When the oil and sauce bottles found their place, the containers holding tea ingredients and other spices were jealous. They were in a plastic cabinet, which was eating up a lot of space on the kitchen table. So I sacrificed my supposed-to-be bookshelf for them. 

For the pots and pans, I found the easiest way out. I got some angle clamps from the hardware store and built two layers of shelves for them. 

One Shelf for the Bathroom

One shelf led to another. With inspiration from The DIY Life with Anika, I made one for the bathroom as well. 

These are the simple ones I worked on. The next two will be much bigger, more complex and of course, my favourites. 

Drawing my Family Tree During the Lockdown

 One of the few satisfying things I have done during the last lockdown was working on my family tree. It was one project my cousin and I planned to do a few years ago but we neither had the time nor the expertise to get that done. The very thought of putting together the details of so many people on a sheet of paper overwhelmed me. 

It may sound petty but I was wondering how many A4 papers I would have to stitch together until I could get all the names up. I was even considering a wall to stick all the names. But deep down I had a strong feeling that there should be some software to create a family tree. It seemed like a big task and we pushed it aside. 

The Black and White Picture
Babu Dorji Tshering

One day, my Asha sent me a black and white picture and said the man in the picture was my great-grandfather. He suggested that we traced our bloodline as far back as possible. This was the second time someone in my family proposed to draw our family tree. This time the black and white picture was truly inspiring. I began looking for software and landed an online site called Family Echo, which was free, powerful and easy to use.

A small part of My Family Tree created using Family Echo

I began working on what seemed like a massive project, but within a few days, I had run out of people. Family Echo helped me organize everything in one small window and make all the complex mapping as I move from one generation to another. The exercise gave opportunities to call older member in the family and dig deeper into their memories. Some of them we so touched that we were doing it and that we reached out to them. 

My Angay and Late Jojo whose name was Angay

As the family tree grew bigger I had the option to invite people in the list to contribute to expanding the tree. This has connected and reconnected many of my cousins. It has helped solve a few confusions I had and gave me lots of surprised when it comes to discovering how I was related to a lot of people I grew up with without knowing that we were from the same bloodline. 

My Mother

I have traced 167 people across 8 generations of my family, five backwards and two downward after me. Before this exercise I could not even name my grandmothers, now I at least know the name of my great-great-great-grandfather. His name was Dumcho Tandi. And the man in the black and white picture was Babu Dorji Tshering, my great-grandfather. It's quite an irony that there was a camera in his time, and there is not a picture from my childhood. 

Unlocking Life Under Lockdown

In the beginning, it seemed quite unfair on my part to stay at home and not be part of the team that goes out to do something more significant to help the government in our fight against the pandemic but over the days it is made clear to us that the act of staying home is a big service. It's strange that absolute inaction could be an excellent action, but this is part of the new normal.

When Nationwide lockdown was announced on 11th August, I panicked about the big consignment of SATO toilet pans that were stranded in Phuntsholing due to tax bureaucracy. It could have easily reached Thimphu way before the lockdown if it wasn't for some obvious bottleneck. I panicked about the much delayed Toilet Ambassadors' Conference that was finally scheduled this month. We were one day behind sending out the invitations to our participants. 

The first two days went into assessing everything that's been disrupted by the lockdown. By the third day, I began to read a book and reflect on everything that's been disrupted by the pandemic. I started listening to audiobooks on Audible while jogging in my room, all the while appreciating how the lockdown was decided because of a lady, and that she hasn't spread the virus to anyone. She rather came ahead like a message to save us from a real threat, much like the first case in the country, the American man who brought us the message to close our borders and to make serious preparation. 

I began counting the blessings, mine and my family's, and that of every Bhutanese born in the warmth of His Majesty's compassionate leadership. I set a writing table outside on the veranda to edit short stories manuscript that's been collecting dust since 2003. 

One audible program I listened during an hour-long exercise helped me reorganize my blog and reconstruct my outlook on blogging. Next time I talk to young bloggers, I have more ideas to share. More than that I want to share with them of our luck in having the universe conspire so beautifully in giving us a doctor as the Prime Minister and an epidemiologist as the Health Minister. They fought two battles with mastery; one with the virus on the medical front and the other on the social front in dealing with people, rumours, misinformation, fake news, fear, oh you name it. The world would have been in a much better position had they had leaders like ours. 

I explored places on Google Maps and started adding and editing places, at the same time visiting interesting places like Doklam and checking how far the Chinese roads have come, visiting hundreds of lakes along the northern frontiers and checking which one is the biggest. As level 8 Google Local Guide I have added hundreds of places and reviews and thousands of pictures on the map, at the same time encouraging youth to try Maps rather than PUBG or Mobile Legends. If we have all our places accurately added on maps, then in times like this when we have to do home delivery of essential items, we could do it efficiently using an app. 

I have managed to use the pen tool in Photoshop to draw shapes and paths and explore the iMovie deeper to help edit my daughter's show better. You could see I have made a logo for Ninzi Show on Photoshop and used it in iMovie to add in her shows. We worked on a new episode to share with families likes ours during the lockdown, to help the parents engage their children in meaningful activities just like I have been doing with my daughter. In Ninzi Show, my daughter is not merely acting for the show, she is showing what she had learned. It would be a shame to come out of the lockdown without having learnt a new skill or polished an old one. 

It will be a shame also to keep any canvas from last years still empty, so I am doing a little bit of painting here and there, experimenting concepts and emulating art masters Asha Kama. My daughter likes it when I settle in the painting room because she loves colours and does a lot with them. 

In teaching my daughter the following household chores, my wife and I learned patience and in recording and editing the show I explored the art of videography to a new depth. Like all of you out there, I want the lockdown to end sooner, not based on sentiments but based on science, however, should it go on for a little longer time then I have plans for unlocking more potential within me and my family. 

3. How to Fold Clothes

2. How to Cook Rice in the Cooker

 

1. How to Make Tea

The lockdown may be proving to be difficult for different groups of people for different reasons, therefore it's important for us to reach out and help in every way possible without judgement. It may be a good restful holiday for some while it could be overwhelming isolation and loneliness for others, not everyone is equally strong but we could be there for each other, showing how to see the light.