Home Remodeling Binder

With so much needing to be done at the mobile home, Eric and I were getting overwhelmed by it all. I needed a solution. I'm a self-proclaimed binder freak, and whenever I feel overwhelmed, the first thing I do is make a binder.  This one was especially fun to make, because I had to get creative about the organization of it all. Here's what I came up with.


I started with a 1-inch binder.  Eric lamented a little bit that it had to be pink, but a pink binder was all I had on hand. :)

Then I used these dividers (purchased at Walmart) and used the templates from the website to make one tab for each room, like so:

(font used is Black Jack)

In each divider, I made a list of everything that I ever wanted done to that room, urgent or not. My printer came with downloadable forms, and this checklist was one of them.  It would be equally possible to write this on a piece of paper or make your own form using Word or Excel. The little box on the side was designed for check marks I'm sure, but I used it to color code each item according to urgency.  Red means it needs to be done before anyone can move in, yellow means you can move in before this is done but it needs to be done as soon as possible, and green means it's a more aesthetic item and can wait until we have more time and money. The page shown below is from my "Outside" section. 

I purchased some these photo pages at Office Depot. These are page protectors designed to display photos, but I decided to use them to display any samples or paint chips I happened to pick up.  These also go with their corresponding rooms tabs. Here is a sample of the counter I want, in the kitchen tab:

And my paint ideas for outside:

I also I used a list form to organize my to-dos in a different way, this time by importance instead of room. Eric liked being able to see all the things he needed to do immediately in one spot. Here are my greens:

You can also put in shopping lists, or blank paper for extra notes.

Well, there you go! Eric has been singing my praises since I made this for him, and it definitely has made things way less overwhelming for me. I can guarantee you that this little baby will never be far from me for the entire project!