
Our living room, complete with kid. I couldn't QUITE get up the nerve to show you the laundry-strewn bed!
I was inspired by a fairly traumatic post on Young House Love to tackle a project that I’ve been putting off for a while: creating an inventory of our home contents in case of emergency or another break-in.
I don’t know what was different- that I had the camera sitting on the desk recharging, that my son’s guitar teacher was here so I couldn’t veg out on the couch or if I was just extra-motivated at the end of a long week. But in any case, I grabbed my camera and set about taking photos of everything in our home: pieces of furniture, pictures on the wall, contents of cupboards…I even took pictures of our DVD collections and our dishes!
The project didn’t take too long either- about 20 minutes, start to finish, with another 20 minutes to upload the photos to my Dropbox account. Granted, we have an 1,000 square foot apartment, with only five rooms, not counting the kitchen or bathroom. And I have to admit that I didn’t bother straightening anything before hand either- the insurance company will get an eyeful of our clean laundry waiting to be folded. But the important thing is that the pictures are taken and if something does end up happening, we at least have a visual record of what we need to try to replace- along with pictures to prove it.
Sure, it may be better to have a room by room, written inventory of all our possessions, complete with receipts. I haven’t seemed to be able to get around to creating one though, in the past 4 years of telling myself I need to do so. I’ve been a rapid follower of Unclutter’s A Thing A Day forum for about 6 months now and I’ve been strongly inspired by the idea that sometimes it’s just enough to get started.
One foot in front of the other, one thing at a time. Just do the next thing on the list, and it will all get done!
What have you been putting off?
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I’ve done this before but it’s been ages & so many things have changed around here. thanks for the reminder!
No problem- now get moving!
I saw this YHL post, but thanks for sharing your take on it — I’d never heard of Dropbox, and will use it now! 🙂 Great post!
And the best part about Dropbox (one of, anyway) is that it’s free for the basic plan, which includes a good amount of storage.
Good post, my favorite part was all of the Ikea stuff in the picture used 🙂 gotta love that store!!
When I walk through Ikea it’s hard to find things that I *don’t* own!
I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. Thanks for the kick in the pants to get a move on with it 🙂
Other things I’ve been meaning to do and putting off: finish organizing and filing papers into my filing cabinet, unpacking and organizing the stuff in my basement, writing up a will and last testament, and mending the pile of clothes that are building up. I better get on that 🙂