The quote's signed, the skip bin's out front, and the trades are due Monday. Somewhere in the excitement of finally starting, almost nobody stops to properly record what the place actually looked like before the sledgehammers show up — and by the time there's a disagreement about who cracked what, it's too late.
Why "it wasn't like that before" is a hard argument to win
Renovations involve a lot of people moving through your house — tradies, deliveries, sometimes subcontractors you've never met. If something gets damaged that wasn't part of the job, proving it happened during the renovation (and not before) comes down to whether you documented the starting condition at all.
The same goes for the other side of the ledger: fixtures, fittings and materials you're paying for as the job goes. Renovation spend adds up fast and receipts scatter across trades, suppliers and cash payments — useful to have in one place, both for warranty claims later and for your own sanity when it's time to add it all up.
What's worth doing before the first wall comes down
- Photos of every room, from a few angles, before work starts
- Close-up photos of anything already damaged or worn, so it's clearly dated beforehand
- Receipts and photos of fixtures, fittings and materials as they're bought and installed
- Warranty details for anything new going in — tiles, appliances, fittings
Where My Asset Mate comes in
My Asset Mate lets you log the before-photos, the receipts, and the new fixtures and fittings as the job progresses — all kept safely on your phone, and in the cloud too if you choose. Tools and equipment you're using or buying for the job sit in the free Tools & Equipment category; bigger fixtures and property details can go in Premium categories, which every account gets a free one-month trial to try out.
If a dispute ever comes up — with a tradie, an insurer, or your own memory six months later — you've got a dated, photographed record instead of a "pretty sure it was fine."
Ten minutes with your phone before the first wall comes down can save a lot of arguing later.