Built with Love: Tips for Documenting Your New Build

For us, our new build is our forever home. After 9 moves in 7 years, I never want to unpack another box again (except maybe helping my kid move to college). Because it’s such an important milestone for us, we wanted to make sure we documented every step of the build. Plus, it’ll give me a super cool decor piece. We’re going to frame each picture these square frames and hang them beside each other in our den on a gallery wall. Even if you don’t plan to live in yours forever, you ARE putting your heart and soul into the home so I firmly believe you should have these tips for documenting your new build. They’ll give you some super pretty family photos during the 9 months or year you’re building and let you have something to show your kiddos what their house looked like before it was a house!

I’m honestly not sure where the idea for documenting your new build came from, but I’m SO thankful I had the thought BEFORE we missed our chance to have a full series of them. I do wish we’d gotten another round of them during the framing process, but the outer walls went up SO quickly we didn’t get to. We did, however, go ahead and document putting Bible verses on the interior frame while we took the second round of in-front-of-the-house pictures.

Because I didn’t find the idea anywhere else, it was quite the learning process as we went. I’m hoping to be able to help you skip the missteps we made and have a perfect set of pictures, almost as beautiful as ours. (Just kidding) Down below our example of three pictures to take when you’re documenting your new build, you’ll find five of my best tips for documenting your new build.

Tips for Documenting Your New Build

1. Make sure you choose a spot far enough out from the curb that you’ll be able to get most/all of the house into the picture. We missed some of the roofline, but the house itself is in all of our pics.
2. Remember WHERE you’re standing! Check your foundation framing to figure out where your driveway, front door, etc. will be and remember where in relation to those you’re standing so you’re close to the same spot in each picture.
3. Fairly early in the morning or evening are the best times for your photos as far as lighting goes. That said, pay attention to where the sun rises and sets so you don’t end up staring at it like we did in our last set!
4. Make your outfits coordinate, but not match, in each picture. At the same time, look back at the last pictures you’ve taken so you don’t end up repeating outfits!
5. Continuity is key, so remind yourself of what order you’re all standing in when you take the pics. The idea is to have the only thing changing in the pics (as much as possible) is your future home.