Can't be a*sed to clean

[Zebra]

Oh dear. I'm sure we've all been through it, have we? With the whole house in upheaval, nowhere finished, nowhere clean. Tools stored in the middle of the living room. Unfinished concrete floors. Holes in the wall. No front door. No windows. No door to the bathroom off the street. No furniture, clothes in cardboard box for over a year now. (Mum doing washing for over a year now!) Stuff gets dumped wherever, and it seems like what's the point of cleaning?! OK, every few weeks I'll put a new piece of newspaper on the piece of OSB that serves as a kitchen worktop. And the bed itself is OK. I'm not a messy person, but there are always more important things to do!
Please tell me you've all been there!

 

[MdB]

Nah...

Never had that problem.

(nice toenails!)

 

[Zebra]

Why, that looks quite clean! In between all the mess I mean.

 

[MdB]

This was from 4 years ago. It isn't much better now....

 

[Zebra]

OK yes that's quite grubby, how long was it like that?

 

[Moo]

We've not quite reached that state yet, but we're working on it!

 

[MdB]

OK yes that's quite grubby, how long was it like that?

You realise that I take that as a challenge?

This was a few weeks later.

All three pictures were taken of exactly the same part of the house.

Whilst the builders were here, things moved on very quickly. The problem came when they left as everything moved on very slowly from there. We spent 9 months living in the caravan followed by 9 months in a tent on the living room floor.

 

[Flyfisher]

Housework is vastly overrated. The trick is learning to be at ease with your surroundings.

 

[Zebra]

See, this is what's so great about this forum. When it's all getting a bit much, when you're feeling like your life will never be back to normal, when you're fed up with not being able to take your boots off indoors, the dust over everything, the endless filth, someone turns up who lived in a tent on their living room floor for nine months!
What you say is true, it's not the sudden intense builders mess that makes you wonder what on earth you're doing - that picture is just the middle of a construction project and must have been quite exciting - it's the ongoing chaos, the lack of comforts, the lack of normality.
Here's one I've just taken, that fireplace was my pride and joy after I'd spent so many hours pointing the brickwork, laying the hearth, unearthing the bread oven, installing the fire, and there it is, just dirty and surrounded by mess. Oh well. Henry should get off his a*se and help really. It's all his fault, he could have cleaned up while I was at work!


Flyfisher, how far can you take that philisophy?

 

[Flyfisher]

I suppose everyone has their own personal limits, but there'll be good days and bad days, depending on how you feel.

I've read (on here somewhere) about the wisdom of creating at least one 'safe haven' amongst all the building debris, which should include an ample supply of hot water for a refreshing shower or relaxing bath and a clean, comfortable bed. A long hard day getting tired dusty and sweaty can be almost be enjoyable if you know theres a hot shower and fresh sheets at the end of it.

 

[Zebra]

Yes, I have a nice shower, and a comfy bed.
And so in another frame of mind, I'm warm, I'm dry, and I'm safe, and how many people in the world don't have that?

 

[JohnB]

It's shunting stuff around from one place to another that gets to me. As I live downstairs and upstairs is empty, I want to put loft insulation down on the upstairs floor for this winter. Trouble is there's lots of stuff dumped up there, ranging from building materials and rubble to furniture and guitars. So I need to shift it all into the other part of the house, which already contains lots of similar stuff! Then I'll move onto another stage of the project, and it will all have to move elsewhere!

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, I have a nice shower, and a comfy bed.
And so in another frame of mind, I'm warm, I'm dry, and I'm safe, and how many people in the world don't have that?

That's the spirit!

Now, what's that song at the end of Life Of Brian . . . . . . ? :wink:

 

[robgil]

OK yes that's quite grubby, how long was it like that?

You realise that I take that as a challenge?

This was a few weeks later.

All three pictures were taken of exactly the same part of the house.

Whilst the builders were here, things moved on very quickly. The problem came when they left as everything moved on very slowly from there. We spent 9 months living in the caravan followed by 9 months in a tent on the living room floor.

I believe this pile featured in a ''who has the biggest pile in their house'' or something like that competition we had a year or two back?

 

[Owain]

.... Tools stored in the middle of the living room.... clothes in cardboard box for over a year now. ... Stuff gets dumped wherever, and it seems like what's the point of cleaning?

Absolutely. All that.

And I'm not even in the middle of a renovation.

Although no door to the bathroom off the street is a bit extreme (and draughty). I think I'd get some bubble wrap curtains pinned up quickly.

 

[LadyArowana]

It doesn't matter about cleaning in the sense of general dust and other particulate removal when you are doing a project, as long as essential areas like bathroom, kitchen and bedding are hygenically clean. What matters is being tidy and organised. If you know where everything is and why it's where it is then all is well. Mess to me is big heaps of assorted stuff that has just been chucked anywhere and nobody knows whats there. A tidy organised site is just work in progress, with or without a film of dust over the top. All the pictures look fine to me, in fact I am particularly impressed with Zebra's mantlepiece, the square cartons I can see are all parallel to the edge and everything else looks neatly spaced, labels visible........................


( OK I confess I am a serial organiser, not quite to the level of alphabetising my soup cans, but everthing has to have a proper place and schedule. Dearest husband knows that a newspaper more than a day old has already gone into the recycling bin, to be kept for a week before disposal! he has challenged me on occasion that something has been "thrown away" but usually it's just been "put away" :lol: )

 

[philpjuk100]

Beware! after four years we sold our previous property which meant the contents of the garage had to be housed here in an untidy garage ,shelves purchased,surplus bikes ebayed and now I cannot find ANYTHING!! Now I must start on the workshop but I am working on my windows whilst the weather is good,I know there are two mitre blocks somwhere in the garage but cannot find them so will buy a third today!

 

[Lime]

A great problem for me is that a very tidy/clear space immediately spurs me to make improvements/alterations that otherwise would not have been considered or countenanced because of the previous clutter/mess.

 

[88v8]

Currently the sitting room with its new £6,000 floor is in use as a woodwork shop, while I slowly construct the understair cupboard in the dining room.
The dining room is consequently rather dusty, and its woodburner partly disinstalled because of flue pipe alignment issues that I thought would take 'a few moments' to resolve huh.
The kitchen still has its crappy old uncontrollable stove we inherited over a year ago, which was a priority to replace, while our new(ish) induction hob sits in our stores. Did I mention our stores... we're renting three units, about £400/month, and I bet that a good proportion of the stuff in there ends up getting charity shopped or just plain thrown away.
Cleaning... ummmm, is that what one does when there are visitors?

Ivor

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think you're all staggeringly hard working, talented and patient! It's quite a test of character to live in a permanent building site, but must be a lovely feeling to be freeing the house of all that concrete and unsympathetic development.

Chris and I decided fairly early on in the project that with each room needing rewiring, plaster making good, floors needing attention and a full redecorate including ceiling and fireplace repair, and then thousands on decorating and furnishing, we could only manage one room a year. Chris has been brought up to not be able to tolerate a single speck of dust or thread of cobweb and I'm not much better.

The Campaign room is just passing its year deadline now - with just the rewiring and lime plaster repair in place and still needing replumbing with new rad, a tented ceiling making and then the hugely laborious hand sanding, oiling and waxing of the boards - it's certainly as much as I can cope with! At least the beds and campaign chest have been bought but we still need to find around 3 k for radiator, light, mattresses, bedding, curtainry, wallpaper and rug - I see it swallowing up all next year too to be honest.