I practically had a nervous breakdown this weekend.  Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration but I felt like a bag of nerves, like anything would set me off in tears.  I may sound completely OTT (it does to me as I write it) and while I know we are lucky to have a home that we can make changes to and I do utterly appreciate this fact, living with the mess of DIY isn’t fun.

Removing the original ceiling has meant a constant settling of dust and dirt that goes everywhere.  We did more work this weekend just to prepare the space so there was more dirt, more dust, more destruction.  The thing about this kind of work is that it’s not just one room that’s affected.  Ask anyone who does their own home improvements and they’ll tell you that the mess and chaos will somehow find it’s way to nearly every room of your home.

There are tools and boxes in my dining room, bits of the new sink unit in my living room, the laundry that would normally air dry in the guest bedroom (the only room that’s normally allowed a bit of chaos as it’s very rarely used as a guest room anyway and it’s been raining so I can’t hang them outdoors) are in the master bedroom.  The huge box for the storage unit is hanging out in the entrance hallway.  My dressing room is right next to the bathroom so dust is settling on every available surface.

I never feel CLEAN.  My home doesn’t feel CLEAN.  We still have a good few weeks left of this.

The main culprit is the fact that we only have one bathroom in the house.  We have to continue to use it throughout this process.  It would be so much easier to have 2 bathrooms – we could then just remove EVERYTHING at one time, clear the whole space and ready it for what’s to come.  But we can’t really do that.  Living without a bathroom for a few weeks is just not possible.  So we have to do little bits here and there and make do with bathroom that’s a mess.

Boohoo.  First World Problems.  I know, I’m such a spoiled brat.

So what did we actually do?  Well, on Saturday, Wayne put up the drywall on the ceiling and cut the holes for the pendant, 3 spot lights, the extractor fan and the pull switch.  The pull switch will allow you to shut off the spotlights so that just the lovely refracted light of the Moroccan pendant will be on if you wanted a bit of mood lighting for a lovely long soak. 

The tape was just a means of ensuring the spacing of the cutouts was even.

On Sunday, I wielded my trusty mallet, a few chisels, sexy safety goggles and an exactoknife and went to work removing some of the tiles around the sink and the back wall of the tub.

The wall behind the tiles, as expected, is a bit of a mess and will take some work to make it nice and even ready for tiling.  Removing small tiles is a lot easier but the existing ceramic tiles are pretty big and I managed to cut my leg from flying shrapnel.  Not for the faint hearted!  And don’t be stupid and wear cropped jeans when carrying out this kind of work.  Learn from my mistakes ;)

After I removed the tiles that I could (we can’t take the ones out from below the sink or toilet until we are ready to swap them out nor can we remove the ones on the wall where the shower head is for the same reason), I cleaned up the mess the best I could and took a shower. *facepalm*

It’ll be worth it, right?  RIGHT??

And if you’ve made it this far through my moaning whinging post without wanting to kill me, I’m going to reward you with some pictures of really pretty bathrooms.

All can be found on my Pinterest board, Bathroom Ideas

Are you dealing with any DIY mess at the moment?  Got any tips with dealing with the chaos?  Wanna tell me to shut up and be grateful for having clean, running water?  The comment box awaits.

P.S.  Google Reader shuts down on 1st July.  I don’t wanna lose you!  Here’s a fantastic post on how to import the blogs you read to either Feedly or Bloglovin’.