The Chuckles Great DIY Nightmare #1

If you follow my blog, you know my bedroom is due for an overhaul and I want to get it done before winter sets in. The issue with it is I kept adding small bookcases which stick out into the middle of the floor, I'm forever tripping over piles of stuff, having to twist my back squeezing between storage units and shelves just to get in and out. It became intolerable when I started storing extra supplies that I bought in before lockdown. I was going to rearrange everything this summer, weed out what I didn't need/want, get rid of two broken bookcases and get the other bookcases stacked in against walls to clear the floor area. I had to delay due to local recycling centre and charity shops being closed, then on reduced opening hours and taking in limited items. There were two hour queues to get into the recycling centre and that was just too much. They had just got back to full service when Scotland pretty much locked down again.

 

Things are not going to get back to any kind of normal until at least spring and I can't wait that long so I need to push on with it, even if I need to store bags of books and stuff elsewhere until I can get rid of everything. This is that week so I might be a bit absent as it is going to take days to get it done! You'll soon see why with my DIY Diary!

 

You can see above how hard it is to get in and out of my room. The gaps are a foot to a foot and a half at most between door, bookcases, chair and footstool and boxes. Nightmare!

 

SATURDAY-Preparation Day 1 

You just don't realise the amount of stuff you have until you need to move it all. My first step was to empty bookcase 2 and stack the books and dvds in our bathroom. Bookcase 2 has three shelves and two rows of stuff on each shelf. Bookcase 3 is a small unit that has a cd stacking bit on the left and five mini shelves that each take about ten dvds. It is about to fall apart so we are throwing it out. Moving the contents of both filled the bathroom, took two hours to do and crippled my back.

 

SUNDAY-Preparation Day 2

Moved what was on top of bookcase 2 and 3 out into the hall. Between Bookcase 3 and the chair, under and around the chair, I'd stacked things like cd storage bags, empty storage boxes, extra piles of books, bags of junk food and boxes of nuts. All of that and a few other random items were moved gradually through today and into our shower unit as there was nowhere left on the actual bathroom floor. I also moved everything sitting on the actual chair and footstool and stuffed it into my dad's room. The house looks like a disaster area.

 

MONDAY-Preparation Day3

Small Bookcase 3 has been removed from my room and brought downstairs to get it out the way so we can dismantle it. Bookcase 2 has been swivelled round to sit right up against Bookcase 1. This lets me use it for temporary storage during the upcoming removals and opens up floor space a bit for the main upheaval to come. My dad moved the TV unit in his room so we can use that space for more storage in the coming days. Then I cleared a path to my door ready for the start of the real work.

 

The next step is to move the chair and footstool on to the bed to give us access to Bookcase 5, which is the one we are getting rid of. It will need to be emptied and moved from my room into the gap my dad created in his room and used as temporary storage for books until we are totally finished. We hope to do that on Tuesday if we feel up to it! That bookcase has six shelves with two rows of books on each of those shelves so we're not looking forward to it!