How to Reconstruct a Contents Inventory After a Total Fire Loss

Rebuild it room by room from the evidence that survived — cloud photo libraries, order histories, receipts and statements — rather than from memory alone.

Kevin Godfrey, KevinLast updated 3 October 2026

How do you build a contents inventory when everything is gone?

Room by room, using the records that survived outside the house: phone and cloud photos, retailer order histories, card statements, email receipts, warranties and registrations — then memory to fill the gaps those leave.

Almost nobody can list a household from memory, and nobody should try to. The photo library on a phone is the single best source most people have: years of pictures taken for other reasons, with the contents of rooms in the background. Start there, go room by room, and treat memory as the last pass rather than the first.

Evidence that usually survives

Where the record of a household actually lives
Source	What it gives you
Phone and cloud photo libraries	Years of rooms in the background of other pictures — the richest source most people have
Social media photos	Birthdays and holidays, which are rooms photographed at their fullest
Retailer order histories	Exact models, exact prices and exact dates for anything bought online
Card and bank statements	Merchants and amounts, which recover purchases the photos missed
Email receipts and confirmations	Searchable by merchant and by year
Warranty and product registrations	Model and serial numbers for appliances and electronics
Manuals kept in a drawer	Model numbers, where the drawer survived
Insurance scheduled property	Anything already scheduled is already documented

Go room by room

Walk the house in your head in a fixed order and do not skip a room because it was small. For each one: furniture, electronics, soft goods, what was in the closets, what was in the drawers, what was on the walls, and what was stored under or on top of things.

Kitchen — appliances large and small, cookware, dishes, glassware, utensils, pantry contents, linens.
Living areas — seating, tables, media equipment, rugs, lamps, art, books, games.
Bedrooms — beds and mattresses, dressers, bedding, the full contents of each closet, jewelry, personal electronics.
Bathrooms — linens, small appliances, the contents of cabinets.
Garage, basement, attic — tools, lawn equipment, sports gear, holiday decorations, stored furniture, boxes nobody had opened in years.
Outside — patio furniture, grills, planters, anything in a shed.

What to record for each item

The fields that make a line priceable
Field	Why it matters
Quantity	The line total multiplies by it
Description	The more specific, the closer the price. This doubles as the search
Brand	The single most useful word for finding a replacement
Model	Where variants price apart, this is what separates them
Age	How long you owned it — this is what drives depreciation
Replacement cost	What it costs to buy the same thing today
Source	The listing that price came from, so it can be checked
Room	Keep it as its own field, not folded into the description

If you have no photographs

A written list can be priced directly — a typed inventory, a spreadsheet, or a list a restoration company produced. Each described row is researched and priced the same way a photographed item would be, with the source kept on the line. What you lose is brand and model precision, which is exactly why specificity in the description is worth the effort.

The mistakes that cost the most

Generic descriptions. "Sofa" prices as the cheapest sofa a search can find.
Skipping the small things. Drawers, closets and linens are a large share of a contents claim.
Inconsistent ages. Guessing wildly on one line and precisely on another makes the whole schedule look estimated.
Losing the source. A price with no listing behind it is an assertion, and assertions get negotiated.
Stopping when it gets tedious. The last third of the house is worth as much as the first.

Common questions

Where do I even start after a total loss?

Room by room, from memory, with the house plan in front of you — and before you start listing, gather the evidence that will jog it: phone and cloud photo libraries, retailer order histories, card statements, email receipts and warranty registrations. The list you build from evidence is always longer than the one you build from memory alone.

What should I record for each item?

Quantity, a specific description, brand, model where you know it, roughly how old it was, what it would cost to replace today, where that price came from, and which room it was in. The two people usually forget are age — which drives depreciation — and the source of the price.

What if I have no photographs at all?

Then the description becomes the evidence, and specificity is what you have instead of a photograph. "Pottery Barn Andes sectional, 3-seat, charcoal, about six years old" is a priceable line; "sofa" is a negotiation. A written list can be priced directly — it does not need photographs at all.

How detailed is too detailed?

There is no such thing on a total loss, but there is a wrong order. Capture everything at a coarse level first so nothing is forgotten, then deepen the lines that carry the most value. A complete list of rough items beats a perfect list of a third of the house.

Do low-value items matter?

Collectively, enormously. Linens, kitchen drawers, cleaning supplies, tools, toys and the contents of closets add up to a large share of a contents claim, and they are the first things people skip because each one feels too small to write down.

Should I do this myself or hire someone?

Many people in a total loss work with a public adjuster, who does this for a living and knows what a carrier will question. If you are doing it yourself, the method on this page is the same one they use — it is just their full-time job and your worst month.

Where software fits

Kevin is professional software — it is what a public adjuster or an inventory specialist uses to turn a list or a set of photographs into a priced, documented schedule with a source link on every line. If you are working with an adjuster, this is the kind of tool doing the work behind your schedule of loss. If you are doing it yourself, the method above is the same one either way, and it works in a spreadsheet.

Nothing on this page is a statement about what your policy covers. Depreciation, recoverable depreciation and coverage limits are determined by your policy and your jurisdiction.

Building a total-loss inventory?

Kevin prices written inventories as well as photographed ones — a typed list, a spreadsheet, or a restoration company's PDF.

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