Builders just dropped a fucking ceiling on my baby.

[MummytoMog]

He's ok, but I found him screaming in his bed surrounded by his plasterboard ceiling. Absolutely furious. I wasn't listening to the explanation about how our ceilings are inadequate. I will talk to them later about it. When I don't want to kill them.

What were the builders doing at the time or was it a ceiling they'd just put up?

Focus on the fact that he is OK!

They're about to put the steels in for the new loft conversion. Sounds like the original loft conversion involved them damaging the structure of the ceiling somehow, anyway, all of our first floor ceilings have been cracking over the last couple of days, and I don't know what they did over the baby's room, but it looks like a foot went through the plasterboard.

So it was an accident? Slipping off a rafter (or is it a joist? Can't remember) in the loft and through the ceiling is easily done.

Still very scary though - can you make sure he's downstairs when they're in the loft from now on? Difficult if he was still asleep from the night though.

I've mis-footed in my loft. Thankfully I did it in the new extension and the ceilings there are apparently strong enough to take the weight of an adult woman. If I'd done it in the original part, it's lathe and plaster and not only would I have gone straight through, but it's hugely painful as the lathes dig in your leg as you try to pull it back up (my dad's done this!)

I think it was a slip off a joist - he was still asleep, it was just before eight it happened. We're going to be waking them earlier and getting them downstairs in future, although I am assured that the steels going in today will make this unlikely to happen again. Not sure when they're going to fix all my ceilings though, whole upstairs looks awful, especially where there are holes through to daylight. We'd have cleared out upstairs a bit as well if we'd known this was going to happen. Anyway, children and other precious things now downstairs.

Are you feeling calmer now? It sounds like it was a genuine accident.

That's really frightening and I'm glad your DC is ok. I'm not in any way blaming you but I have to say I am sufficiently paranoid that I would have had the DCs outside on the ground floor before building work started on a loft conversion. Sounds like a genuine accident.

Apparently the apprentice was walking where he shouldn't be. I really didn't think reconverting the loft (it was already converted, but not very well) was going to involve quite so much removal of my roof or completely redoing the floor. It does sound like the original conversion was even dodgier than we thought. Builders keep saying that it would have been easier to do this from scratch, especially as they've had to work round the dodgy wiring and plumbing.

From watching far too many building programmes, I think it's always easier to start from scratch. In fact, the old Grand Designs episode I watched last night made exactly that point - it was a mix of new-build and restoration and the new build was a piece of cake!

HOpefully all will run smoothly now (and the apprentice won't make the same mistake again I imagine!)

Hopefully. It's been a really poor start for me, and not all that much has gone wrong, just much more stressful than I thought.

Still, had to be done, the loft bedrooms were totally unusable in the summer, freezing in the winter, tiny, up a staircase of death and we really needed another bathroom. But if I'm finding it this hard to be relaxed about a loft conversion, I am a bit worried about how I'm going to cope with the two storey extension that is supposed to be starting in six weeks.

I guess the extension will be outside work rather than in your house... that must be an improvement!

I would be speaking to the builder about this. The problem isn't dodgy workmanship, but that their apprentice was walking where he shouldn't have been and as a result, dumped a load of plaster on a sleeping baby.

Explain that you're not cross about the ceiling coming down per se, because that's a result of the previous poor craftsmanship, but you are annoyed by the actions of the apprentice when put your baby at risk.