App tips
2 Powerful Around the House Features You Might Not Know About
Get to know Documentation Readiness and paint color tracking: two useful ways to keep your home's important details ready when you need them.
You might already use Around the House to keep track of repairs and maintenance reminders. But did you know it can help you prepare your records for an insurance claim or remember the exact paint color you used years ago?
Those needs tend to arrive at inconvenient moments. You’re trying to describe a damaged appliance, or standing in a paint aisle wondering which white belongs on the hallway wall. A little information saved earlier can make the next step much easier.
Two features are especially useful for those moments: Documentation Readiness and paint color tracking. Here’s how to put them to work.
Do you know if your home insurance coverage is enough?
It’s a worthwhile question, but there are two different things to consider: the coverage your policy provides, and the documentation you’ve collected about your home and belongings.
Adequate coverage depends on your policy, limits, exclusions, and circumstances. A recordkeeping app cannot settle that question for you. Your insurer or insurance agent is the right person to help you review it.
Documentation answers a more practical question: if something happened, could you find the details of what you owned?
Around the House helps you organize home inventory records, property information, insurance documents, receipts, and photographs. Instead of relying on memory, you can build a record while the information is easy to find.
What Documentation Readiness tells you
The app’s Documentation Readiness view shows how completely your home’s recorded items are documented. It checks four things across those items:
- Whether you’ve entered a replacement value.
- Whether you’ve saved a photo.
- Whether you’ve attached a receipt.
- Whether you’ve recorded a model or serial number.
The percentage reflects how many of those details are present. A breakdown shows the categories, and a review list helps you find items with missing information.
That makes the score a useful prompt to fill gaps. It measures the records you’ve entered; it does not tell you whether every possession is listed, whether your values are accurate, or whether your insurance coverage is sufficient. A complete record also doesn’t guarantee that an insurer will approve a claim.
Start with one item you would struggle to replace
Think about a refrigerator. You might know the brand, but could you remember its model number after a leak damaged the kitchen?
While everything is working, take a clear photo of the appliance and its identification label. Add the purchase receipt if you have it, and record the replacement value you want to keep on file. Then check Documentation Readiness to see what is still missing.
You don’t need to document the entire house in one afternoon. Start with a few important items, then add another room when you have time. Keep insurance paperwork with your other home documents so you can find the policy as well as the item records.
The benefit is preparation: collecting information before an unexpected event makes it easier to explain what you have afterward.
Could you find the exact paint color you used three years ago?
You saved the leftover paint somewhere. The can might even be in the garage. But is it the hallway color, the guest-room color, or the shade you decided against?
A useful paint record connects the color to the place it was used. Around the House lets you save paint brands, color names and codes, finish information, and locations, including rooms and surfaces. You can also keep photographs of painted walls, paint cans, and labels together.
Save the details that distinguish one can from another
Imagine the hallway walls and trim are both white. The walls have an eggshell finish; the trim has a different finish and a slightly different color code. A note that says “white paint” won’t help much when you’re buying more.
Give each record enough detail to tell those paints apart. Save the brand, name, code, and finish, then note which room and surface they belong to. Photograph the can label while it’s still legible. If the same paint went into another room, record that location too.
The app also supports looking up colors in its included paint catalogs, and searching saved paint records by details such as color name or code. On-screen swatches are useful previews, but lighting and screens affect appearance. Keep the written code and label photo, and check a physical sample before repainting.
Make the next touch-up easier
When a chair scuffs the hallway wall, you can return to the saved record instead of guessing from an old can. For more ideas about what to save, see paint color and finish tracking.
Both features work best when you add a little information as you go. One receipt today, one label photo after a painting project: small records can save a surprising amount of searching later. Explore Around the House and start with the detail you’d least like to lose.