For my latest PhotoPost, I thought I'd "show you around" the house as I prepare for my new roommate. I pulled up a couple of "before" photos from my April 2005 blog entry "10 Years at Home with Mike and Cancerboy." Then I interspersed photos I took from last week up to last night as I move furniture around, cleaning as I go. Most of the "progress" will also be featured in a "Mike's Video Blog" as well. I was going to upload a Video Blog on the 26th of June, before I even knew whether or not I was staying in the house, but as usual, I've expanded the scope of the video, to include the "makeover", which I'm now calling "Mike's Extreme Makeover". Following is the progress so far. I haven't had any help with any of this either. I'm moving everything around myself with the help of a small four wheeled dolly.

BEFORE: From the April 8th, 2005 blog entry: "Welcome Home: This is Where I Hang Out" . The living room was a lot larger, or at least it seemed to be larger, before the 2nd bathroom was attached to the master bedroom in 2007. Here is a view of the north end of the living room. Joel's sofa was to the right of the coffee table, and my Lazyboy chair is out of frame on the left of the photo.

Here is the room shown this past Saturday. In 2007, when the bathroom was added, the front door had to  be moved, and instead of moving it to the far corner of the room, it was moved to the center of the wall, making it difficult to place a sofa against the east wall (to the right). We moved the loveseat to the center of the room, so this area is a lot "tighter" than in the photo above. My vinyl record collection is in the bookcase in the center of the west wall. I've been intending to move it out of the way of the most visible area of the room for a long time.

Here is a view of the east wall. I had moved Joel's almond colored entertainment center, which I attempted to sell on Craigslist, out of the master bedroom and against this wall temporarily. When the center failed to sell, I decided to use it to store Joel's record collection. The door to the master bedroom, which will be occupied my Mike, my new roommate, is to the left of the entertainment center. This is where the original front door to the house was located. Now the bathroom is in it's place, and the front door, which can't be seen in this photo, is to the right.

Here is a photo I took this past Sunday, after moving the furniture around so that most of the wall units are on the south wall, and the loveseat is now against the wall where my record rack used to be. My Lazyboy chair hasn't moved. I shot this before hanging the mirror, which I've had for about 35 years. I and a buddy made the frame out of 1x12s, used a jigsaw to cut the pattern, and then stained it. The mirror is pretty heavy, and was "lost" in it's previous place hanging to the left of my DVD storage area on the south wall.

I took this photo this morning as I was about to leave for work. Instead of a bunch of mismatched bookcases, the loveseat now sits against the west wall underneath my mirror. I plan on putting a sofa in this area. The loveseat will go on the wall to the left of the front door where I'd placed Joel's entertainment center, which is now on the south wall. (You can just make it out in the shadows to the left of the picture.) The lamp is a "southwestern"  piece I've had since I lived with Pat. It's the only southwestern themed piece I kept. (Our coffee table was held up by a bear cub like this one. I found on the internet. )

BEFORE: From the April 8th, 2005 blog entry: "Welcome Home: This is Where I Hang Out"  Here is the south wall of the living room back in 2005. You can see the loveseat against the back wall, flanked by a white chair/ottoman and a black chair. Joel's sofa is on the left. This was back before the door was moved and the 2nd bathroom added. When I took this photo, I had cleaned up everything except Joel's coffee table. My mirror used to be on the south wall as pictured here, but I hung it too high, so you couldn't even see yourself in the mirror.

Here is the same area this past Saturday morning. At first I was going to steam clean the carpet before setting the bookcase and entertainment center full of record albums back against the wall, but I wanted to find a new home for the cats before I steam cleaned, which I plan to do this upcoming weekend. I didn't want to stop my momentum, however, so I cleaned the carpet "manually" along this wall so that I could position the furniture here.

This photo shows the front door in it's present place in the middle of the east wall of the living room. The entertainment center is still on the wall to it's left. I had just moved the bookcase and filled it with records, when I realized that the entertainment center wouldn't fit on the right of the bookcase, because of a wall outlet. Last night I took all the records back out of the bookcase, moved it down the wall to the right, and put the entertainment center where the bookcase is shown in this photo.

Here is the area Monday evening after the I put Joel's record albums in the entertainment center. Although the major work on the house was done in early 2007, as Joel was getting sicker, he didn't want any more construction going on, so I didn't push for the owner of the building to "finish" some of the unfinished business, like putting up a curtain rod above the window on the right of the door. This is one of the "improvements" that will be done in the next couple of months. Joel hung an old blanket over the window as a temporary curtain.

This is another view of the same area in the above photo. I will probably move the green bookcase where I store my DVDs to another area, so that there aren't so many media storage units on the back wall. It might get moved to where I temporarily put the entertainment center, but I don't have hardly any seating here now, so will most likely move the loveseat to the area to the left when I get a new sofa.

Another view of the south wall from the side of the bigscreen TV. I advertised the TV for sale along with the entertainment center and a ceiling fan. No takers on the TV, but I have someone interested in the fan and we're going to talk after lunch.

Over the weekend I also got quite a lot accomplished cleaning up the 'back yard' which is mostly covered in concrete. This is not the "before" or "after" photo but was taken right after I weed whacked most of the vegetation before bagging the last load. I had three full 39 gallon lawn and leaf bags filled with vegetation from this area. I really should have taken a "before" photo but frankly, I'm ashamed how this area looked prior to cleanup. The triangular piece of metal on the far wall is rain gutter which was removed from the house's eaves in 2007 and never reattached. (Only in California would we even think of going three years without rain gutters, but there's hardly any rain!)

This is the last piece of furniture in Joel's room. I do want to keep this desk, which used to my computer desk before I bought the L shaped computer desk which is now in the "media room". I'll probably move this to the garage storage area temporarily. Spike is troubled that all the furniture in this room has disappeared. She's finding less and less places to hide.

This small desk unit was in the garage, and originally came from Joel's mom's belongings after she passed away a few years ago. I unpacked one of the boxes of stuff I had in the garage, and "decorated" this little desk with some of these items, including a "Pac Man" electronic game, an old bong, Mickey Mouse ears, and a couple of Polaroid "Swinger" cameras from the 60s. The little bicycle model (which has working pedals and brakes) and the Aladdin's lamp were rescued from Joel's belongings.

Lastly, here is Spike stretched out on the bare carpet in her old stamping grounds in the master bedroom, which will be taken over by my new roommate Mike in September. I closed the door to this room after I cleared it out, but Spike wails so much because she can't get in, so I opened the door for her. I really don't know what I'm going to do with Spike and Malcolm. A couple of phone calls to kitty adoption centers proved futile. Everyone is full up with cats, and nobody is accepting any more. One gal told me to take them to the vet to be "put down". My reason for calling adoption centers was because I don't want to murder the poor little creatures, who aren't hurting anybody. I felt terrible after I was told to take them in to be "put down". I might just keep them around, and try to "teach" them not to go to the bathroom on the carpet. I absolutely will not just "get rid of them", since I do have a bit of an emotional attachment to the little gals. I thought I'd get more negative comments when I mentioned last post that I needed to find a home for them. After all, I always feature both Spike and Malcolm on my blog. They're a part of the family. Mike might just have to adapt to them. He knew I had cats when he answered the ad.