Projects by Uniquely Yours Digital Solutions
A year ago my best friend restarted her life after a divorce in a beautiful new condo. She became the victim of an arson attack on her complex in January of 2015. Unfortunately, due to our busy schedules, we had not undertaken the home inventory she wanted. Now we are doing a post-loss inventory and it is very difficult to see the pain and stress she is under during the recovery process.
She asked me to please share on my blog the importance of being adequately insured for not only your contents, but also loss of use of the residence. It was amazing how quickly the hotel bills have added up and she is displaced for 4-6 months while the city, HOA and multiple insurers battle it out.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
An artist became fearful about losing her home and contents when the home across the street from her on a small cul-de-sac burned to the ground in the middle of the night. She was grateful to have a complete record of her home to be able to identify whether she was adequately insured. One aspect of the inventory that surprised her was the need to assign names and values of her own work that was displayed in her home. At first she discounted the value of items but when I asked if she would be able to sell them in her gallery, she responded with a YES and was better able to assign a value.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A homeowner requested a home inventory to document her home assets, and in particular, a valuable guitar collection. She was amazed at the total value of the items in her home and very grateful to have peace of mind.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A home inventory of an estate was performed upon the death of the client’s mother. The inventory assisted her in the sale of the home’s contents.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A client requested a home inventory when their friends experienced a fire loss and the extensive information required in the insurance claims process. The client lives in a heavily wooded area where fire risk is high and wanted to make sure they had complete documentation and images of their home contents. Upon completion of the inventory they made an appointment with their insurance agent to review their policy coverage’s. They were very impressed with the reports, images and receipts/appraisals and other documents all organized in one central file.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A client hired me for a full inventory of his house and collectibles as part of his estate planning process. He wanted to make sure he was fully insured for his assets and to be able to assign specific items to family and friends in his estate as well as sell items he has collected over the years. The extensive catalog of his assets and collections makes it easy for him to keep track of what he has as well as prevent duplicate purchases of items.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A client hired me for a home inventory for both estate planning and identifying if she was adequately insured. She was surprised at the total value of items in her home that she had overlooked and was very grateful to have the documentation.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A client hired me to create a detailed documentation of their art inventory. They were moving and wanted to make sure they had images and documentation of their prized art pieces that were to be crated up for storage/shipment. They were extremely pleased at the results and also were able to meet with their insurer to increase their coverage’s as well as having a dated digital image and description of each piece to track during the shipping/storage and delivery process of their move.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A client was referred to me after she had (3) (yes, three) floods in her home over a 3 month-period. She lived in a condo complex at the bottom of a hillside and a pipe broke in the complex. Ironically, she had been planning to move and had boxed up all of her important documents and small treasures, which were stored in the garage. The flood completely destroyed everything in the garage and the lower level of the home. She wished she had known about my services long before this happened. The second and third floods were the result of the same issue– a very unusual situation, but she had moved all of her art to the upper floors. She was very nervous about another catastrophe before she could sell her property and hired me to document her extensive art collection and home assets. She requested I store her information for her on my cloud servers as a backup.
The inventory not only gave her peace of mind, but she was able to use it to provide to the movers for insurance and damage waivers when she did get to that point. She was very grateful and we have become friends that stay regularly in touch.
About a year later she reached out to me to provide her with a replacement DVD so she could sell off some of the art pieces. She was not very fluent on the computer and I was able to help her view and use the inventory from afar.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
After the death of his mother, a client hired me to inventory her home to document what was in the house in the event another family member with access to the house took items out of the home. This was a challenging job because I was told, “my mother had a lot of stuff” – not unusual in an inventory – many of us tend to accumulate a lot of things over the years. However, this turned out to be a hoarder situation and I had to call in people from my referral network to clean out the house while I conducted the inventory. It was quite an interesting experience.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Collections Cataloging Services
Book cataloging
I was hired to document an extensive railroad and transportation book collection primarily for insurance purposes. The client is an avid collector and was beginning to lose track of which books he had purchased. I worked with his insurer to identify the criteria they required to add a rider to his insurance policy, which ensured he had exactly what he needed and gave him peace of mind and an organized library he can now carry on his phone to avoid duplicate purchases. He is also now able to update the library as needed.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Lladro figurine collection
A woman who recently lost her husband and had to place her mother in an assisted living facility reached out to me to document for sale 160+ Lladro pieces she inherited from her mother.
She was delighted with the catalog and then hired me again to photograph the art in her home and she further solicited my services for appraisals of the art and the Lladro for donation purposes.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Photo Cataloging Services
Photo digitizing/organizing
A family lost their mother, who was the family historian. There were boxes and boxes of historical documents and paper photos the children did not want to lose. Several of the children lived in different states. I was hired to scan, name and organize all of the family history and photos. The completed project was uploaded to the client’s cloud storage site where other family members could enjoy them and add names and dates. Additionally multiple flash drives were created to hand off to each sibling for their own use. The family is delighted to have maintained their family history and now have the ability to expand on their archive.
At the passing of the family matriarch, I was hired to digitize many paper photos from the 1900’s for a funeral service. They were delighted to be able to share these precious family memories with friend and family.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Scanning and photo restoration were done for a Women’s Club anniversary celebration. They incorporated the scanned photos into a PowerPoint presentation that was enjoyed by all attendees.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A photo-scanning project was undertaken for a surprise birthday party with a PowerPoint presentation. The client was delayed in starting the project and was delighted at how fast I was able to scan, clean up and provide her with digital copies.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A client came into possession of a family album from his Japanese ancestors. He was concerned about aging and decay of these precious photos and he was delighted I was able to scan, restore and provide him with file named and organized photos.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
For a 25th wedding anniversary, I was retained to scan, restore and organize paper photos for the development of a coffee table book. The recipients were delighted and it was gratifying for me to see the final product as well.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
For a family history archiving project, I scanned, restored and organized with photo naming, several boxes of photos. The client is delighted and has been able now to upload the photos into her archiving history software and share with her family and friends.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Other Cataloging Services
A client with an extensive Monty Python collection hired me to help him update a database/catalog of his entire collection for sale. This involved photography, data entry and scanning. He was able to submit a digital catalog to an out of the area seller and both he and his wife were happy to be able to reclaim a room in their home with the sale of his items.
A busy financial advisor needed help organizing his leads and managing his customer base. Upon review of his needs I was able to scan all the business cards, upload them into his proprietary database and help him create regular monthly contact emails. He has retained me on a regular basis.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Videos
My girlfriend wanted a special gift for her granddaughter’s high school graduation. She asked me to scan photos of her granddaughter and her family from birth up to current day and create a digital movie they could surprise her with when they flew in to attend her graduation. The movie included the scanned pictures and special songs selected by the mother and grandmother.
It was a true labor of love to create this for her and she told me when they played it for the family, everyone cried. I made several duplicate copies for her to give to other extended family members and she still tells me regularly how delighted she is with this service.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
For a surprise Father’s Day gift for her husband, I was hired to create a video montage with specially selected music. The client and her husband were overjoyed with the result.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
Document Scanning
A small business owner working out of his small apartment was overwhelmed with his paper business records and was having difficulty finding items when he needed them. He hired me to scan and organize 8 bankers’ boxes of files into digital files. At the conclusion of the project he was able to shred all of the paper and find the files he needed in about 10 seconds.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A friend of mine lost her mother and was settling her estate. She brought me 4 boxes of financial and other documents to sort out, digitize and organize by vendor and by year. This saved her hours and hours of time sorting and enabled her to settle the estate faster.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
An estate attorney was struggling with organizing and keeping track of several boxes of estate documents from his client. He knew of my services and hired me to organize, scan and return everything to him on a flash drive for faster processing – saving him and his client money.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
A past client re-contacted me when she took a new job in another state. Before her move she wanted to digitally store several boxes of paper files that she did not want to keep at her parent’s home nor ship to her new location. She left the files with me and I uploaded the files to her Dropbox account, as they were ready. She now has immediate access to all of her documents and can find anything easily and quickly.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
The IRS was auditing a chiropractor client; she had a separate room in her office suite full of paper documents and did not know where to start. I worked with her to locate and then scan all of the pertinent documents and create an organized system for her going forward.
Tricia Hoekwater, CIS, PMP
