Clearing a parents house

[Ceebeegee]

Hello everyone, just looking for some advice because I'm struggling with the situation currently.
My elderly dad is now in a care home. He has a rental property that we have now have to give up and return. I haven't given notice yet (on my dads behalf as POA) and the rent is still being paid, so there is no sense of real urgency so I keep putting it off.
He has lived here 52 years so there is years and years of "stuff" to deal with.
Where do you start?
It was my childhood home and, due to emotional situation anyway, I am struggling to rationally do any clearing of the house because everything suddenly seems sentimental.
How do you break through the barrier of sentimentality? I dont have room to store a 3-bed house worth of stuff, but I feel like I am being horrible if I get rid of anything.

The remaining clothes, linens and bedsheets, I can easily donate to charity or a clothing bin., But I struggle when it comes to books / artwork / trinkets / CD's / hobby collections of my fathers. He had a few collectible hobbies, that he has aquired over his 82 years - I think a lot are worthless to anyone else but they were my dads quirky hobbies so it feels disrespectful taking them to the dump/recycling centre.
I dont know where to start. I keep walking into a room thinking I'll tackle this room first, but I dont make any progress because I cant bear to part with any of it. But my dad isn't coming home so it needs to go.
Where do I start and how to get over the sentimental block?

It also taught me not to hang onto things you no longer want/need Easy to say, harder to, both on the practical (I may need that in the future) and the emotional (disposing of your climbing gear is admitting your deterioration)

When we were clearing DM’s house after she had to move to a care home (dementia) a Sis IL had the bright idea of advertising an ‘open afternoon’ on the local Freecycle or local FB/both, and we put a lot of usable household stuff - even if far from pristine, e.g. old saucepans and crockery, in the sitting room.

It was amazing what people came and took away - which saved us several trips to either tip or charity shop.
The sentimental items were very hard to deal with but none of us had room to take everything.
One thing I took was an ancient wooden spoon my DM had had for ever - it was worn right down on one side. I told dh very firmly NOT to put it in the dishwasher, but of course he eventually did, and bits of it broke off. 🤬

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER I have kept a couple of old spoons and a big china serving plate that were my great grandmas, but my late gran and mum always used them for cooking at Xmas. They must be over 100 years old by now and still going strong!

However my new years resolution is to start to clear my own kitchen cupboards and attic of "stuff" so that when my DH and I pop off (hopefully not for a while yet!) it's much less hassle for my DC to deal with.

I think I would just take it the stuff you think your Dad will want to see again or that you definitely want to keep and then personally I would get a house clearance in. It saves you going through this and will be quicker so will save the rent.

We also had a large corner of one room where we put the 'I don't know how I feel about this at the moment' stuff. It became enormous but meant as soon as with dithered over something it went in this pile so we were able to crack on. As time went on we realised there were lots of duplicates

.... in this pile and made it easier to sort through.