Bathroom chaos in The View from the Terrace

It is chaos here; Chris and Hubby are doing up the bathroom. When we moved here in 1979 the bathroom had only recently been put in, it was clean and freshly decorated with woodchip paper and magnolia paint, very 70s! Over the years we gave it another coat of paint but didn’t bother doing any more until we decided to put a shower over the bath. The walls were simply hardboard papered over, no tiles anywhere, not even over the bath so something had to be done. The hardboard wouldn’t take the weight of proper tiles and we didn’t have much money anyway so I bought some tiling wallpaper. It lasted about a year before starting to peel but we were deeply involved with 3 children, one autistic, though we didn’t know that then, and an alternative private school where part of our contribution was to help with maintenance. The house just got left. A few years later I bought more paper which I was assured was definitely waterproof and we tried again. That lasted a little longer, maybe almost 2 years before peeling! Since then we have simply patched it up.

A While ago Chris offered to do it properly. He has researched on the internet and asked advice from a builder friend and this time we are doing it properly which means all of the boarding round the bath coming off, then the plaster underneath, new hard boarding attaching to the brickwork and proper tiles. They have got as far as getting the plaster off and the brickwork is awful, it all needs pointing as the mortar is crumbling. I had a shower last night and I have no idea when I will be able to have another one. The bath is technically usable though using it would involve clearing away rubble and cleaning it first.

As if that isn’t enough to cope with I woke with a migraine and we are having our daughter’s dog for the weekend again. Oh, and we only have one toilet, the one in the bathroom with the rubble and two busy men practically demolishing some of the walls and rebuilding them again!