Mrs. Razzo had a problem. Her husband Tossa never stopped
talking.
He drove her totally bananas.
“It must be a defective gene” she often said.
Then one day she realised the only time he ever shut up was
when he was knitting. It was as though if his hands were kept
busy he didn’t talk as much.
He liked to knit although there wasn’t much call for
woolly jumpers in southern Italy. She thought she would keep
him busy so she asked him to knit her a tea cosy, then a pair
of gloves, some socks, a woolly hat…. Another tea cosy.
On the eight hundred and fifty second tea cosy she was starting
to run out of ideas. The conversation level was rising.
Then she had an idea. This would keep him quiet for a while.
“Tossa dear, I love marble” she said one day,
”can you make me a marble bath?”
“A marble bath love?” he replied. ”That
doesn’t sound easy, marble comes in flat pieces.”
“You could chisel one out of a solid block” she
ventured.
“Chisel a bath out of a solid block!” he thought
with a distinct absence of ease. He remembered with horror
the severe tongue lashing he had received when he had not
got the temperature right for the milk in her cappuccino four
years before.
“Her eyesight’s not too good.” He thought,
“perhaps I could cheat a little.”
Tossa set to work. First he went to an old quarry and found
lots of small chips of rock, they were different colours but
that didn’t matter. He found some cement, he mixed a
very fine mix and put a bit of custard powder in it to make
it a light yellow marbley sort of colour. He then mixed in
the chips of stone and moulded the cement into a rough bathlike
shape and left it to set.
Three days later he looked at his creation. “Damn”
he thought. “You can’t see the chips, it looks
like custard that has been in the fridge for three months
and what an ugly shape.”
But then an idea drifted across his mind. “Hmmm, I wonder.”
He found a flat rock and started to rub the inside of the
bath. After a while the chips started to show. He carried
on rubbing, it was very slow laborious work but after a month
locked in his garden shed he had a beautiful smooth bathlike
shape with a surface that looked rather like….. well
sort of like….umm….er. Well not like marble but
a bit like a very rare type of custard coloured granite.
He gritted his teeth, put in his earplugs and called his wife.
Surprisingly she didn’t even notice that it was not
real marble. Finally roused from her month of blissful quiet
she was taking no prisoners.
“It’s not shiny enough” she said and stormed
out.
Dejected he returned to his task. “I’ll never
get this thing shiny.” He remembered the difficulty
of getting his Wellingtons shiny for church on Sunday. “Perhaps
I could cheat again” he pondered. “Where’s
the shoe polish?”
He found some wax and mixed it with a bit of paraffin. He
rubbed it onto the surface and started polishing it off with
a rag. After some more hard work it started to look quite
shiny. He called his wife.
This time she was impressed.
“Fill it up” she yelled. He obliged.
Her rather large mass sank into the bath and settled like
a beached whale in the bottom. Crack! The bath, without any
steel reinforcing, cracked across the middle. She never even
noticed, it was only a very small crack after all.
And so it was that the world’s first cracked T.E. Razzo
bath was made.
Now the project was finished Tossa’s wife started to
worry. She had to keep him quiet. She invited a friend around
to see the wonderful bath.
“OOOH can you make me one Mr Razzo?”
“Of course he can dear, can’t you Tossa?”
Tossa winced and went back to the shed. It was the start of
a long career.
No sooner had one bath been completed that another was started.
His baths became very popular and Tossa set up a small shop
with his name over the door “T.E. Razzo, bathmaker to
she who must be obeyed.”
The rest is history.
These days T.E. Razzo baths are more poplar than ever. Not
only that, you can have washbasins, benches, floors, even
walls made from fake custard marble, you can even have different
colours - and they always seem to have cracks in them.
So if you are building a house or renovating a bathroom you
may well be considering terrazzo. Making terrazzo is highly
labour intensive which is why it can be far more cost effective
in Bali than in other countries. Terrazzo can look good and
wears well but there are a few things you should look out
for:
1 The base structure for a terrazzo bath is usually made from
light concrete blocks with a thin skim of cement. This is
not strong enough when filled with the considerable weight
of a bathful of water and why they tend to crack. Instruct
your builder to make sure that the concrete base is made out
of concrete with steel reinforcing in it.
2 Think of the size of your terrazzo bath. They are usually
very large and will take an ordinary hot water heater about
three months to fill. Either keep the bath small or get a
“demand” (as opposed to storage) hot water heater.
3 Keep terrazzo clean but remember it has a sealant on the
surface. Do not use abrasive cleaners such as cream cleaners,
scouring powders or scouring pads as these will take off the
sealant leaving the bare terrazzo which will easily pick up
stains. Be gentle and use soap and warm water.
4 If your terrazzo looks a mess (particularly if it is cracked)
it is not easy to repair. Crack repairs are usually only superficial,
they don’t look good and will soon crack again. It is
usually better to tear it out and start again.
5 There are many terrazzo tradesmen around in Bali. They are
able to clean, polish and reseal your terrazzo for you. Be
careful, there are several that learned their trade saying
“terus, terus” in a carpark. It is best to find
someone with some well made terrazzo and get a phone number.
Finally don’t underestimate the ability of terrazzo
making to help you connect with your inner self. Long hours
in the shed bring an inner peace you know. In fact marriage
guidance counsellors are considering terrazzo therapy for
particularly difficult cases and even spa schools are putting
terrazzo making on their range of holistic therapy courses.
Phil Wilson
Phil Wilson is a project director for Focus Indonesia and
a partner of MrFixit property maintenance services. Opinions
expressed are those of Phil Wilson. If you have any questions
or comments he can be contacted at the office on 0361 288
789 or through the website at www.mrfixitbali.com
