Can anyone tell me how you go about dealing with someone's house and contents when they have died

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Is there an order to do things in? Will is v simple and DH is sole inheritor. House is full of stuff. Obv we will go through and take anything sentimental. We will give clothes and things to charity shops. There are some collections of things (can't say what - outing) that we will need to get valued by specialists and a couple of cars that will need to be sold. Then what - do you just get house clearers in? DH would no way be up for a garage sale or anything that involved or that drew attention. Seems sad to send the contents off someone's life to the dump.

We have recently faced this with my mother-in-law's house. We managed to donate the clothes, books, crockery, kitchen utensils, vases, ornaments, etc. The scruffiest clothes went to the rag reycling bin at the local tip. We found that the local hospice would take second hand furniture and even decent electical items such as TV, radios etc. We got a house clearance guy in to take the last few things (beds and sofas that weren't suitable for the charity, a broken table). I used Freecycle to find homes for all her duvets and pillows (which were all quite decent but which most charities won't take), as well as about 200 coathangers, an unused halogen oven etc. We also found a charity called Tools With A Mission www.twam.org that will take garden tools, DIY tools, sewing stuff etc and puts together kits to set someone in the third world up to earn a living. We gave them loads of stuff. My mother-in-law had cupboards full of tins of foid, so we donated all the "in-date" stuff to the local food bank. In the end, surprisingly little of her belongings went into landfill.

Your local auction house might offer a collection service, and then the stuff can be sold by them at auction. That's what I did with the remainder of my relative's belongings.

When my mum died her children took what we wanted - personal things, jewellery, bits of furniture. We cleared clothes, china etc to charity shops. Left the house basically furnished to sell it - sofas, beds, dining table - then once it was sold we got BHF and another local charity to collect stuff like furniture or fridge. It wasn't easy to find people to take some things. Anything left we put on freecycle. It all took weeks if not months. Sorry op it's hard to do. In the end it just needed a big clean, we could have got a cleaning service in tho I wanted to do it myself (not a big property tho!)

Its worth checking what your council will take with furniture, ours will take several items for I think £27, useful for the bits that charities won't take, especially big stuff, we just left in on the drive for the collection day.

Some people are really touched to receive a momento

This. I’ve lost two great friends and I would love to have a memento - a tooth mug or an old teapot or as a pp said, a salt and pepper set.
I’ve left a provision in my will that my good friends can choose a memento if they so wish.

For my mums house we went through and took what we wanted. We then donated what we could to a charity who helps people who need furniture. Some to charity shops. Then we got a skip...

It really made me think about what I would want when I die. I don't want DS having to sort through a load of stuff.

The Salvation Army will be glad to take cutlery, plates etc and some furniture, and there might be a local household re-use charity that can redistribute furniture to those in need. Like a food bank but for furniture and white goods. Your council would probably know.