Some before and after pics...

If this works, I’m going to post some before and after pictures of what things had looked like in my home after my wife’s death and now, so much further down the road…

Much of the general clean-up was done months back. Between myself, my mother, my sister, my mother’s business partner, and with a little help from my kids and one of my friends we got things to a fairly useable point back around September of last year (about a month after the “before” pictures were done). Note that before pictures were actually taken after some of the clean-up had been completed so what you are seeing in the pictures is after some staging had taken place (which is why there are boxes in spots on the sofa).

If things go well, I’ll put up the before picture followed by an after picture for the same general area.

That’s before for the living room area (where the entertainment center/tv is).

After looks (a little) like this:

A new flat panel TV replaced the old 27” CRT, and a new TV stand replaced the old entertainment center. You’ll see in a bit where the tall cabinet on the left came from.

Another before from a similar viewpoint.

This is another viewpoint of the room (looking in the opposite corner). Again, you may notice the boxes on the sofa. Those were being used to help in the clean-up. Before:

After view of a similar viewpoint (note in that before above you can see where the one cabinet was that moved into the opposing corner, near the TV stand in the after pictures above).

And another partial view of the room (after):

The box that is in the chair shown above and the one on the floor beside it are destined for my mother and the giveaway pile. (Goodwill type).

Here’s the dining room (adjoining space) to above.

and another view of same (both are before pics):

and one more of the same general area:

Again the bins above give the hint that some clean-up had already been started as they were used to help organize and gather up items that were going to be given away.

Here’s the after views of the same basic area:

with another shot here:

The small bin on the floor there is filled with tools and household repair items. It is going outside into my storage shed in the near future (after I gather up a few more miscellaneous tools and parts and such that will go into the same bin). Back in the left corner there’s some boxes of materials that are also slated to go out, and on the floor near the blue bin there’s a box of papers to be shredded (I’m going to take that entire box to an industrial/business shredding place to get it handled there). The small white box next to the little rolling rack in the picture above (on the milk crate type box) is my regular “shred” stack. It’s also full and will go to the same place that the other papers are going.

Here’s a shot of my bedroom in the before stage:

The floor there has a couple of large garbage bags filled with giveaway clothing in them. You can see that I had started a pile of towels and linens for my children to get quick access to. The linen closet in my bathroom was filled with many old towels and linens that were given away too. Below is another similar shot:

Somewhere back there was a small table (under the pile that is more towards the right in the picture).

Here’s an after view of that space:

And another:

The small bookcase there to the right is destined for give away. There’s a large bookcase that would be on the left if I had it in the picture. It will be taking the contents of the small bookcase and free up the space there. The object to the right above is a “new” recliner that my mom got at the thrift store. I need to see about getting it cleaned (Stanley Steemer style) as it’s a bit stained, but if it can’t be cleaned it wasn’t very expensive and could be given to someone else. Mom got it at the bargain price of $5.00

That’s about it for now, but you can now see how things looked before and a bit after. Oh, in case you wonder, one of the dressers that was in the before above moved to my daughter’s room. There’s still a lot of cleanup needed there that I’ll be reminding her about over the coming weeks (after school ends for her for the year). My son’s room is also a bit disorganized, but hopefully he’ll straighten it up some too.

At least the space is much more usable now.