The room-by-room home inventory checklist

A home inventory is a written record of what you own, what it cost, and what proof you have of it. Most people only discover they need one at the worst possible moment: after a fire, a flood, a break-in, or a move where half a shipment turns up damaged. At that point you are asked to list, from memory, everything you owned and what it was worth. Memory is a poor witness. A checklist you built quietly over a weekend is a very good one.

This guide walks through the house room by room. Work in the order below, take photos as you go, and record the four fields that matter for almost every claim: what the item is, roughly when you bought it, what you paid, and where the proof lives (receipt, email, photo, serial number).

What to record for each item

Description and quantity — 'Samsung 55" QLED TV, 2023 model', not 'TV'.

Purchase date and price — an approximate month and the original price is usually enough; insurers depreciate from there.

Serial or model number — essential for electronics, appliances, bicycles, tools and anything police might recover.

Proof — a photo of the item in place, plus a receipt, card statement line, or order email.

For anything over roughly the cost of a month's rent, add a close-up photo showing condition and any identifying marks. For jewellery, art, and collectibles, add a valuation or appraisal if you have one — most policies cap payouts on unscheduled valuables, so knowing the cap before a loss matters more than documenting it after.

Living room

Televisions and mounts, sound bars and speakers, streaming boxes and game consoles, sofas and armchairs, coffee and side tables, rugs, curtains and blinds, lamps and light fittings, bookshelves and their contents, framed art and mirrors, houseplants in significant pots. Photograph the room from all four corners before you start listing — wide shots capture the things a list forgets.

Kitchen

Refrigerator, oven and hob, microwave, dishwasher, washing machine if it lives here, extractor hood, small appliances (coffee machine, mixer, air fryer, kettle, toaster), cookware sets, knife sets, dinnerware and glassware, and the contents of the pantry if your policy covers spoilage. Appliance serial numbers are usually on a sticker inside the door or on the back panel — photograph them now so you never have to pull the fridge out later.

Bedrooms

Beds and mattresses, wardrobes and dressers, bedding sets, clothing by category rather than by garment (winter coats: 4; suits: 2; shoes: 12 pairs), handbags, watches, jewellery, personal electronics, and anything stored under the bed or on top of the wardrobe. Children's rooms add strollers, car seats, and larger toys, all of which are expensive to replace and easy to overlook.

Bathroom and utility

Washer and dryer, water heater and softener, vacuum cleaner, iron and board, medicine cabinet contents of real value, hair and grooming devices, towels and linens, and any fitted storage you paid for separately from the building.

Home office

Laptops, desktops, monitors, printers, routers and mesh nodes, external drives and NAS units, desks and chairs, docking stations, cameras and lenses, microphones, and software licences you bought outright. Record serial numbers for every computing device — this is the category most often stolen and most often recovered.

Garage, balcony, and outdoors

Bicycles (frame numbers, please), power tools and hand tools, ladders, lawn mowers and garden equipment, barbecue, outdoor furniture, sports gear, camping equipment, car accessories such as roof boxes and winter tyres, and anything stored in a shed. Many policies treat outbuildings separately, so keep this section clearly labelled.

Loft, basement, and storage

Seasonal decorations, luggage, archived documents, spare furniture, and boxes you have not opened in three years. If you cannot say what is in a box, that is a good sign the box needs a photo and a label rather than a line item.

Documents worth listing alongside the items

Property deeds or rental agreement, insurance policies with their limits and deductibles, appliance warranties, vehicle papers, passports, and any appraisals. Keep scans in the same place as the inventory. A claim moves faster when the adjuster can be handed one folder rather than pointed at three.

Keeping it current

An inventory that is three years stale still helps, but the useful habit is small and regular: add a line whenever something over a certain value enters the house, and do a full walkthrough once a year — a birthday or the start of the financial year makes a good anchor. Store one copy off-site or in the cloud; an inventory that burns with the house is no inventory at all.

Doing this without a spreadsheet

Spreadsheets work, but they punish you for the part that matters most — attaching photos, receipts and serial numbers to the right item. That is the gap Gharlog was built for: it keeps each item, its documents, its warranty dates and its photos together, on your phone, so the walkthrough above becomes a fifteen-minute job rather than an afternoon of file naming. Whether you use it or a notebook, the checklist is the same. Start in the living room, take the wide shots first, and work your way round.