Eclectic Homes

Be Prepared With a Household Inventory — and Use It to Declutter Too

You may have heard of, or perhaps created, a house stock before. This record, often used to record belongings for insurance purposes, can also be a really helpful tool if you’re attempting to declutter, prepare for crises, clear area for a remodel or simply get organized. Have a look at these tips to create a comprehensive home inventory and enhance your belongings at exactly the exact same moment.

Lauren Leonard Interiors

Make Your Inventory

Pick your own checklist. The first step in making a house inventory is getting your hands on a comprehensive checklist — one from your insurance business is best. Review the checklist before getting started.

TreHus Architects+Interior Designers+Builders

Work through your house, room by room. After your checklist, work your way slowly through the entire home — you may want to divvy up the job over several evenings. Document a brief description of each item, just how many you have, just how much it cost and the year you bought it.

Don’t leave out any nooks or crannies. Craft rooms, sheds, attics, workshops, porches and garages should be carefully analyzed and documented.

RW Anderson Homes

Supplement with video or photos. Using digital photos is 1 option, but you could find it easier to create a video tour of your house to record your belongings. Whether you’re taking video or photos, start at the front and work your way through each room — attempt to go in the exact same order used on your own checklist.

Richard Bubnowski Design LLC

Add a storage map. Noting down where precisely in the home what’s stored can be incredibly helpful when you need to find something, whether it’s an emergency or simply time to hang the Christmas lights.

Use a genuine floor plan if you have one; if not, you can create your own simple sketch of each floor of your residence. Being as specific as possible, note where in every single room boxes or other items are stored.

TransFORM | The Artwork of Custom Storage

Maintain paperwork in 1 area. Gather receipts, credit card statements, evaluation documents and so on, and maintain them bundled with your other home stock substances.

Better yet, take some opportunity to scan everything and save the digital archive in at least 2 locations.

Terrat Elms Interior Design

Use Your Home Inventory to Declutter

Eliminate unnecessary multiples. Cutting surplus multiples can free up a lot of room in your house, but actually getting rid of unnecessary things is easier said than done. Your house stock checklist can make things easier by providing psychological distance.

Read over your list and mark any items you have a lot of. Do you really need all of those additional dishes? Begin a list of things that you wish to sell or donate.

Andrea Schumacher Interiors

Highlight valuable items. Especially note valuable pieces you have been holding onto for quite a while but are not necessarily using. Do online research and gauge what you could sell the bits for. Would you rather have the additional space and cash? If this is the case, let those bits go!

Harrell Remodeling, Inc..

Mark your calendar for a big junk throw. You know that stuff you have been meaning to throw but have not found the motivation to? We all have it. Now you know precisely what and where yours is, specify a date to (ultimately) treat it.

Get ready by researching where you can take it — matters in good shape may be candidates for donation, while others may need to be dropped in a special recycling centre. Involving a reward in the end of your day of errands is always a fantastic plan!

Cynthia Lynn Photography

Box everything. Now that you have cleared out space in your storage areas, think about ways to make your storage really work for you. One simple but effective plan is to tuck every single thing in storage — if in closets, cabinets or in storage — right into a box or bin.

Containers immediately make things look neater, and it is also easier to shift items around or grab a box that you need rather than attempting to unload armfuls of loose stuff from a shelf.

Jackson Design & Remodeling

Utilize storage for rotating items too. Free up space in cabinets, cabinets, shelves and counters to the items you actually use everyday, and pack off the remainder. This is one of the greatest strategies to make your life easier, without getting rid of a drastic amount of stuff. Simply rotate in new dishes, linens and decorative items.

Jenn Hannotte / Hannotte Interiors

Contemplate digital copies. Creating digital copies (scans or photos) of paper documents, photos, kids’ art and other memorabilia can provide reassurance. For less sentimental items, you may choose to actually throw the originals and maintain only the digital record.

austin outdoor design

Remember to …

Update your stock. Anytime you buy something new or get rid of something on your list, pull out that stock and notice the shift. If it’s something new you’re incorporating, use this as a cue to look for a similar thing on your inventory to get rid of. It is much easier to keep clutter at bay than cope with it once things have gotten out of hand.

Maintain a copy of your stock offsite. Utilize a safe-deposit box or an online cloud-based storage system to maintain your house stock and all supporting files secure.

More: 4 Obstacles into Decluttering — and How to Beat Them

See related