actually, it's not surprising ....
some of these old houses are made of extrememly durable wood
like chengal which is very expensive, and now, protected. A few
planks of chengal can run into 4 figures easily, so it's quite
worthwhile to kapo ....
i've heard of timber traders buying going to old houses like
these and tearing up such timbers to sell. They'll just sand and
machine it again and you won't be able to tell the diff.
