Bathroom Dilemma

Alright, y'all.  Our bathroom currently looks a bit like this: 

I know... not a lot of progress since yesterday.  Things take time when you are a DIY novice! 

We're leaving the mirror up since it is the only light source in the room and our new fixture is not going to use the same wire locations.  Since we're planning on doing accent tile up that wall anyway we wont be painting or doing anything else to the wall for now except fixing the hole.  Once we get the floors and other walls finished we'll have our electrician come in and rewire the new fixture in for us.  If we were just swapping fixtures in the same spot I'd try it myself, but since we need to move wires I'd rather leave it to the pros.

The floor is now scraped smooth.  It's obviously not beautiful but it should be perfect for our project.  Based off of the advice from family and friends and the information I've found online we don't need to scrape down to plywood if we're just laying down new mortar and tile.  It just needs to be mostly smooth with no major high spots.  Check!

We've removed all the trim inside the room, spackled any holes or dents in the walls from old pictures and bathroom fixures, let that dry overnight, sanded this morning and then did a second coat of spackle.  I'm waiting for that to dry and then I'm hoping I can get to painting.

....


Wait, isn't there still a giant hole in the wall???


Yup. 

Sh!&.

Okay.  So new plan:  tomorrow we're going to get a new piece of drywall, cut to size and hang that up.  Then we have to spackle that thing in place, prime it all and THEN I can start painting.  I plan on painting the room and doing the floors afterwards because the thinset has to cure for 72 hours once the tile is down.  And if I drip paint all over it wont get on my pretty new floors.

Anyone know how to hang drywall with pipes sticking out of the wall??  Thank god for DIY videos on YouTube.

Our other dilemma is tile placement.  Due to how narrow the bathroom is (34.5'' wide) we are going to have to cut some of the tiles into narrow strips.  The question is do we cut them so the strip is in the transition area at the bathroom door (see picture below for dry-run) OR do we cut them so that the narrow strips of tile are along that far wall when you enter?

Leave any advice or opinions below!  Thanks.