A Lesson Learned in Construction and Homeownership

This shows the wall color in the studio

Do you know how you keep some things thinking you might need it again someday and then the thing you don’t keep is what you need?

This past week, we started getting Campbell Town in “company ready” shape – you know, sprucing up things you can live with as a homeowner, but you don’t want guests to see?

We have friends coming down for the holiday weekend, so it was time to hit the home maintenance “to do” list hard.

My husband and I have the classic man vs. woman argument about hanging things on the walls.

He doesn’t like nail holes, so I compromised and went with those sticky picture holders.

Although I used several heavy duty ones to hang a printer’s drawer in The Belle Writer’s Studio, after six years it decided to fall off the wall this past winter.

In addition to my knowledge that I was right about those stupid sticky things  (hate them) I now had an uneven spot on the wall where it also ripped the drywall.

Dale patched it and then we started looking for the left over paint. Even if it was no good after six years, we could get the color and go have some more mixed to touch up.

We spent an entire evening looking in both basements, in the closets in the house, on a shelf atop the bathroom in the studio.

Nothing. Well, there was plenty of other junk we need to go through and lots of old paint cans from various projects, but none that fit the color of the inside of the studio, which is a very light yellow (I like working in bright, cheery rooms).

After an hour and half search on Tuesday evening and at our wits end because we couldn’t remember the color name or where we even bought the paint, I finally remembered all of those receipts from the studio build in 2008 that I kept in a contractor’s folder in my file cabinet.

Now, if I hadn’t decided I no longer needed construction records and purged it during one of my manic clutter eliminating episodes…

To my relief, the folder was still in the filing cabinet with all of the other important house and land surveys, papers and receipts.

There was also a receipt from Sherwin Williams showing not just the color, but the codes they need to mix it.

Our only other concern after having a small can of touch up mixed in Cottage Cream was if it had been on the walls too long to match.

Luckily, since we didn’t have time to repaint the whole interior, Dale is an excellent painter, which apparently includes blending paint. I can’t even tell where the touch up went on.

A lesson for anyone contemplating on building a home or office, no matter how big or small, keep all of those records and receipts together in a safe place.

You never know when one of those tiny pieces of paper might be needed and help save you unnecessary work and money, even six years down the road.

Have you ever needed something that you thought unimportant and threw away?