New home, new baby — the complete documentation checklist

1. The home inspection, before you move in

The inspection report is the most valuable document you will ever receive about your house, and it is also the one most likely to be read once and never opened again. Keep the full PDF, the inspector's photographs, and any specialist reports — sewer scope, radon, mold, structural. Pull out the findings that were not fixed at closing and put them somewhere they will resurface, because those are your first two years of projects.

Note the age of the roof, the furnace, the water heater, and the electrical panel while it is in front of you. Those four numbers determine most of what you will spend on the house for the next decade.

2. Nursery setup

Nurseries get documented in photos and nothing else, which is a shame, because the details are exactly the ones you will want again. Record the paint brand, colour name, colour code, and finish — for the walls, the trim, and the ceiling separately. Note the flooring product and the underlay. Keep the blackout blind measurements. Photograph the anchor points used to secure the dresser and bookcase to the wall.

Two years later you will be touching up a scuff, or painting a second nursery to match, or answering a buyer's question about the finish. A colour code takes ten seconds to record and cannot be recovered any other way.

3. Baby gear inventory

Take the registry as your starting point rather than building a list from scratch. Export it and bring it in whole — our guide to the Babylist registry import walks through it. Then, as items arrive, add the details that only exist on the box and the product itself:

• Car seats — model, serial, date of manufacture, expiration date, base model
• Strollers — model, serial, frame and seat compatibility
• Cribs, bassinets, play yards — model, serial, assembly instructions
• Monitors, pumps, bottle warmers — model, serial, receipt for insurance claims
• Carriers, gates, outlet covers, anchors — brand and model

Photograph every serial sticker as you go. Then register each product with its manufacturer, and save the registration link on the record — that matters more than anything else on this list.

4. Appliance warranties

Every appliance in the house — the ones you bought and the ones that came with it. Model number, serial number, purchase or install date, retailer, warranty length, and the receipt. Add the HVAC system, the water heater, and the garage door opener, which people forget are appliances until they fail.

Manuals belong here too. A model number is enough to find a manual online, but a saved PDF is enough to fix something at 9pm without a phone in your hand.

5. Contractor records

Anything anyone does to the house: the contractor's name and licence, the signed contract, the scope of work, change orders, permits, inspections, before-and-after photos, warranties on labour and materials, and the final invoice. Photograph inside the walls before drywall goes up — where the studs, wiring, and pipes are is information that is otherwise destroyed by the finish work.

This is the part that pays back most obviously. Documented improvements support your cost basis at sale, satisfy insurers after a claim, and answer a buyer's questions without anyone having to take your word for it.

6. The vault transfer at your future sale

The whole point of documenting as you go is that the record becomes an asset. When you sell, the house side of your Our Haus vault — appliances, paint colours, permits, improvements, maintenance history — transfers to the next owner as a complete digital history of the property. Your listing agent can grant a buyer a preview of selected information, or order a printed Haus Book from the record.

The My Life side does not transfer. Your baby gear, electronics, and valuables stay with you, because they are yours, not the building's.

How Our Haus helps

• Two sides, one vault — this home for the property and my life for everything you personally own.
• Inspection report import — upload the PDF and get a prioritised list of findings instead of forty pages you will never reread.
• Home Manual — shutoff locations, seasonal tasks, appliance help, and property quirks in one place for whoever needs them next.
• Forward-to-file email and Amazon paste-to-autofill — receipts and product details captured without typing.
• Babylist CSV import — the registry filed under baby & child in one upload.
• Ask Bob — the assistant answers from your own records: what paint is the nursery, when was the furnace installed, what is the stroller model.
• Vault transfer and the Haus Book — hand the record to the next owner at closing.