Renovation Existing Conditions Record Checklist

Give every room a short code and use it consistently in file names, notes and sketches, instead of relying on names that will change once the layout does.

Room names shift during a renovation while codes do not, so a coded record stays readable even after walls have moved and uses have changed.

Put the date into the file name of every image and note, rather than relying on the date held invisibly in the file properties.

Hidden dates are stripped when files are messaged or copied, and an undated image of an unfamiliar wall settles nothing at all.

Keep the record in one place with a copy held somewhere separate, and open the copy once to confirm it actually works.

A record that lives only on the device used to make it is one loss away from disappearing at the point it becomes most valuable.

Write down who took each set of notes or images, particularly where more than one person is contributing to the record.

Different people notice and describe different things, and knowing whose observation you are reading helps when something needs checking.

Decide before you begin whether the record is to describe the property to professionals, to document pre-existing condition, or both.

The purpose changes what needs capturing, and a record made only for one of those reasons often turns out to be useless for the other.

Photograph each room once in daylight and again with the artificial lighting on, since the two reveal quite different things about surfaces and shadow.

Surface defects, uneven plaster and awkward lighting often show in one set of images and are entirely invisible in the other.

Include a familiar everyday object in at least one image per room so that anyone viewing it gets a sense of scale without relying on a stated measurement.

Scale is the thing most often lost in owner photographs, and a recognisable object solves it without pretending to any accuracy.

Photograph where floor meets wall and wall meets ceiling in every room, including behind doors and in the corners you would normally skip.

Junctions are where earlier alterations, movement and past repairs usually show themselves, and they are almost never in a general room shot.

Open every cupboard, wardrobe and built-in unit and photograph inside it, including the back walls and any pipework or wiring passing through.

Enclosed spaces are where original surfaces survive and where services are usually visible without anything being taken apart.

If an image shows something you do not recognise, such as unexpected pipework or wiring, ask the relevant qualified trade rather than investigating it yourself.

Record a slow walkthrough with your own narration, describing what you are looking at as you move through the property.

Narration captures context that still images cannot, and it preserves the things you currently know about the property but will not remember later.

Sketch each room freehand and add your own rough measurements, labelling every one of them clearly as approximate rather than presenting them as accurate.

An honestly labelled sketch is genuinely useful to a professional, whereas an unlabelled one invites somebody to rely on it.

Rough measurements describe a property; they never order or build one. Ask a qualified professional to measure anything that will be made or fitted.

Note which walls appear to be out of square and which rooms narrow towards one end, without attempting to work out why that is.

Out-of-square rooms affect fitted joinery, tiling and flooring more than almost anything else, and flagging them early avoids an unwelcome surprise.

Record the position of every door and the direction each one swings into, including whether it lands against a wall you might want to use.

Door swings quietly rule out tall units, radiators and switch positions, and this is easy to establish now and awkward to change once joinery is on order.

Note the height of window sills relative to something obvious such as a work surface or a radiator, rather than attempting a precise measurement.

Relative descriptions are honest and useful, and they avoid an approximate number being treated later as though it had been surveyed.

Mark on the sketch every area you could not see or reach, such as behind fitted units or above a high ceiling, and label it plainly as unrecorded.

A blank on a sketch reads as nothing there, whereas a labelled gap reads as unknown, and that difference matters a great deal to whoever reads it next.

Note what each floor, wall and ceiling surface appears to be, marking clearly where you are guessing rather than writing every entry with equal confidence.

A professional can work with an honest guess and can correct it, but cannot tell which of your descriptions were confident and which were invented.

Materials in older properties can require particular handling. Ask a suitably qualified professional to identify anything you are unsure about before it is disturbed.

Photograph existing damage in close-up, including chips, cracked tiling, worn thresholds and the marks you long ago stopped noticing.

Damage that was already present becomes contentious the moment work starts, and only a dated record settles that question calmly.

Record where finishes change from one room to the next and how each of those junctions is currently handled at the threshold.

Threshold details are decided late and regretted often, and knowing how the property currently handles them is a useful starting point.

Note anything that appears to have been laid or fixed over an earlier surface, such as a floor on top of another or a boxed-in section of wall.

Layers change floor levels, door clearances and what lies beneath, and they are one of the most common sources of mid-project surprise.

Keep a sample or a clear close photograph of any finish you might want matched later, together with a note of exactly where it came from.

Ask the supplier or installer whether a matching finish is still available before assuming an existing surface can simply be extended.

Mark every socket, switch, light point and data outlet on your sketch, including the ones currently hidden behind furniture or inside cupboards.

These positions disappear the moment a room is stripped, and they are the detail owners most often wish they had captured beforehand.

Photograph the labelling already visible inside the consumer unit cover and on any service meter, without opening, moving or testing anything.

Photograph only what is already visible. Ask a suitably qualified electrician to open, test or interpret any part of an electrical installation.

Note where radiators, valves, thermostats and heating controls sit, and which room each control appears to serve in practice.

Controls are frequently found to serve something other than the room they are mounted in, which is worth discovering before a layout is drawn.

Photograph the data plate of any appliance or piece of equipment you intend to keep, so that information is not lost when it is disconnected or moved.

Data plates are usually hidden once an appliance is in place and are almost impossible to retrieve after it has been taken away.

Ask the appliance installer what information they need, and never disconnect or reconnect an appliance yourself.

Write down everything that already does not work properly, including switches that appear to do nothing, taps that run slowly and anything that trips intermittently.

Report anything intermittent or unexplained to the relevant qualified trade rather than waiting for the renovation to reach it.

Photograph every external face of the property from as far back as you can stand, and again close up at ground level along each wall.

Distant images show the whole composition while close ones show the condition, and a professional generally needs both to comment usefully.

Record the position of everything fixed to the outside of the property, including pipes, cables, meter boxes, vents, aerials and external lighting.

These items constrain where new openings and equipment could go, and they are routinely forgotten until somebody proposes something in their place.

Note where rainwater goes once it leaves the roof, and where surface water sits or runs after a heavy downpour.

Do not try to diagnose a drainage problem. Record where water collects and ask a suitably qualified professional to establish the cause.

Photograph the boundaries, including fences, walls and any shared structure, capturing their present condition from both sides where you can.

Photograph a shared boundary only from land you are entitled to be on, and ask a suitably qualified professional how shared structures should be dealt with.

Note anything a neighbour has attached to, or built up against, a structure you believe belongs to your property.

These arrangements are usually informal and long-standing, and they are far easier to discuss before work makes them an issue.

Note where direct sunlight falls in each room at different points, and which rooms never receive any at all.

Light patterns influence room use, glare and overheating, and they are extremely hard to reconstruct from memory once a design conversation begins.

Record where condensation forms on cold mornings, which surfaces it appears on, and how quickly it clears once the property warms up.

Condensation patterns say something about how the property is used and ventilated, and the pattern is more informative than any single instance.

Note which rooms are hardest to warm, which overheat, and which feel draughty only when the wind comes from a particular direction.

A note made across a full year of weather describes a property far better than an impression formed on the day somebody happened to visit it.

Log any recurring smell, noise or vibration, noting when it occurs and what else in the property is running at the same time.

Recurring smells, noises or vibrations can indicate a fault in a service. Report them to the relevant qualified trade rather than waiting for the work to reach them.

Record how water behaves at the property, including pressure that drops when another outlet is running and anything that drains more slowly than the rest.

Ask a suitably qualified plumbing professional to establish the cause of anything unusual in the water supply or drainage.

Ask to be told before anything opened up is covered again, and arrange to photograph it while it is still visible.

Concealed pipework, wiring and structure can be seen only briefly, and the record made in that window serves the property for the rest of its life.

Photograph the routes of pipes and cables within floors and walls before they are boarded or plastered over, including the points where they cross.

Anyone who later drills, fixes or alters a surface will depend on this record, and there is no other reasonable way to produce it.

Ask whoever is carrying out the work when an opened-up area may be entered at all, and never approach exposed services yourself.

Note anything found that nobody expected, and keep whatever explanation you were given alongside the image rather than in a separate conversation.

An image without the explanation attached tends to raise the same question again in a few months with nobody able to answer it.

Record where new fixings, supports and framing have been placed, so that later work does not have to guess what is behind a surface.

Future occupiers and trades benefit from this more than anyone, and it takes only a few images at the right moment.

Keep the record going until the last surface is closed up, rather than stopping once the visually interesting stages are over.

The final stages are often where the most useful positional information is created and where record-keeping most commonly lapses.