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Binding the Past

paint swatches fit in slide holder plastic sleeves

I don’t like being organized as much as I get cold sweats when something is a mess. Disturbed, obsessive, bizarre? Yes. One of the tools I use to keep track of household issues is a set of binders. I have one for permanent work, such as construction, painting, and major appliances. I have another for small appliance manuals, furniture care, and transitory issues. This is an incredibly simple thing to do and makes a huge difference when I need to find out how much the last termite inspection cost, or what exact color the yellow guest room is. It takes 10 seconds to use the 3-hole punch and insert new information.

The binder is made up of different sections: contact info and business cards, paint swatches and diagram, construction records, major appliance information, and ongoing work. I use the handy plastic sleeves for cards, swatches, and items that don’t fit easily. A binder is a gift from the gods.

I have another binder trick, which points to further psychological distress. Rather than keeping piles of old magazines, I trim out the articles I want to keep, put them in 3-hole plastic sleeves, and keep them in binders also. This saves a huge amount of room, and makes finding that article about Mount Vernon an easy task.

 

the house binder

Binder, paint swatches

paint location diagram

paint location detail

back of swatches identify location

binder, business card pages

binder, construction costs

binder, building material pages

plumbing and fixture diagram

binder, permits

binder, permanent fixture manuals

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2012 at 12:33 pm and is filed under How. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Binding the Past”

  1. Kevin Perry Says:
    August 29th, 2012 at 7:32 am

    Well, I loved seeing your floor plan. I just may copy your paint colors too.

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