10/20/09 Fifty-nine home improvement receipts (and a few other things), recycledYes, those are more corks. We'll get to that in a moment...
Six years of home ownership have turned me into Mr. Do-It-Yourself. Our biggest project was completely renovating both of our bathrooms. When we moved in, Joanna didn't like the colors in the bathrooms or the bizzaro space-pod shower.
I didn't like the fact that when you flushed the toilet, not a heck of a lot happened. Yes, it was that gross.
Thanks to my wife's sense of interior design, free plumbing help from Joanna's teaching colleague Michelle, and 24-hour phone assistance from The Smartest Man Alive, Chris, I was able to tile floors, move closets, rewire and upgrade lighting, replace toilets (hallelujah!), and install a beautiful, deep tub and shower. Altogether, those projects stretched across most of a year, but the results were well worth it.
Tonight, as I continued the basement purge, I discovered a container full of receipts from Lowes and Home Depot. I'd carefully saved every piece of paper that documented the renovation materials in case I decided, years later, to just return that bathtub. Hey, you never know.
Well, we're stuck with that tub, now. Tonight, I tossed caution -- and those receipts -- to the wind.
As for the corks, well, what can I say? I found another container of them in the basement. You know how alcoholics stash liquor in secret places all over the house? Well, I apparently stash corks in secret places. It's starting to worry me a little.
I swear, if I find another box of them in the future, I'm joining some sort of cork 12-step program.
I almost hate to bring it up, as I would never want to be accused of enabling a hoarder, but make sure you pull out the receipts for the big ticket items (faucets, sinks, toilets, etc.) and keep those. Much of the bathroom stuff has longer than usual warranty protection (the finish and ceramic valves on fixtures are often guarnteed for more than ten years) and you may need proof of purchase should a claim arise.
ReplyDeleteI also think some warranties of installed items are transferrable to the next home owner, so throw all that stuff in a "house file" and turn it over to your home's next family. It's still downsized, just delayed a bit.
CRM, I would just like to suggest that comments on the Downsizing Blog which encourage me to KEEP things may not be highly regarded by my better half. Step gingerly, my friend, step gingerly...
ReplyDeleteI'm just reading through, because de-cluttering is a dream, but also- saving receipts for improvements to your house is a good thing: increases to the value of your house are part of the adjusted cost, so that when you sell (or rent it), you know what numbers to use. And, of course, recently useful for tax credits when making your home more efficient.There's always scanning them and putting them in a computer file if you really need the space...
ReplyDeleteG in Berlin,
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading -- I hope you are enjoying the blog. Since I am now in the process of moving (and actually building a house this time) I've been thinking again about what to keep in terms of receipts and documents for appliances, etc. You're right that it makes sense to have documentation of key improvements. I like the idea of scanning for certain things.
Above all, I think the key is making the right choice at the point of sale: yes, keep the oven manual; no, don't keep the reciept for the bathroom calking. I used to hold onto everything. Now, I think I'm getting better at deciding what might actually serve a purpose in the future and tossing all the rest.
Keep reading!
Reed