You may feel, adding yet another step to the moving process is the last thing you want to do, but moving is the perfect time to take inventory of your home. This is the time when you are most likely to get rid of unwanted and unused items. Having all your household items categorized and documented is a smart idea for insurance purposes too in case of fire, theft or natural disaster. Not only providing a useful record overall, creating a home inventory checklist offers one of the most thorough and efficient ways to catalog your household items before a move. A home inventory checklist is also useful as it can also complement your moving checklist, helping to keep you organized.
Categorize by Room
Begin your home inventory by documenting each room. A home inventory also serves as a mini checklist for each room of your house. Whether it’s a nifty moving app from your smartphone or “old school” with a written inventory, you will want to list your home’s contents, descriptions of each item, dates and approximate values. Avoid making this process time-consuming by providing more detail than necessary. Instead, use general categories and descriptions. You will find templates for home inventory checklists online if you need help categorizing items. If you have any high-value items, take photos of these individually, as well as the entire room.
Fun with Color-Coded Stickers
Have fun with color-coded stickers to keep track of boxes and the rooms that they were packed. Rather than writing all over the boxes in felt-tip marker, you can assign a color to each room and keep track of your color-codes on your home inventory spreadsheet. Your home inventory can come in handy by also assigning a color code for each room. You will easily know which boxes go where, once they arrive in your new home.
You may want to grab some graph paper and sketch some room layouts. That will help you to visualize your possessions in your new home. It may also alert you to items that you should consider selling or give to charity.
Enlist the Help of Others
Even if you are the sole party responsible for keeping the master household inventory list, you can enlist the help of others in your household. Larger areas, like dining rooms or family rooms, can be split up among family members. The process can be sped up by taking inventory of one area while another takes stock of other areas. It is also helpful to have a color-coded folder for each room and to place within each folder any related inventory lists. Later these can be combined into the overall household inventory.
After the Move
Once all those boxes have arrived safely in your new home, you will be grateful to have an inventory of your entire home. You will avoid any uneasy feeling that items are missing because you lack a record, and it also ensures you that nothing was lost or stolen on its journey to your new home.
List it or Leave it