When the time comes to empty out the family homestead, your life can be turned upside-down. Not only will you have to deal with the emotional elements of letting go of the family home, but you'll have years' and years' worth of stuff to sort through and decide what to do with. Here, you'll find a few tips that'll help you clear out the family homestead.

Rent a Dumpster

There will be a lot of stuff that can be thrown out – no matter how selective your family is about holding onto things, you'll have things that just can't go in the everyday trash that's set out each week.

When you rent a dumpster, it'll be delivered to your home and dropped off. Be sure to have an area cleared for the dumpster to be placed. In some cases, the dumpster rental will have to remain on a hard to semi-hard surface to prevent damage to the lawn or to stop the heavy delivery truck from driving over buried gas and water lines.

Lease a Storage Unit

You'll find a lot of stuff that you won't be ready to let go of, but you don't want to take it all back to your home. There will also be things that you aren't quite sure what to do with. The storage unit can be used to house all of these items.

As long as you carefully place the items in storage, they will remain in great condition until you're ready to retrieve them again.

Tip: If you live in a damp climate, you'll want to find a storage facility that offers climate controlled units, or you'll have to dedicate a day each month to stop at the storage unit and change out buckets of silica gel. Silica gel absorbs moisture, but it will only hold so much before it becomes useless. Fortunately, the moisture can be dried out of the gel by baking it for several hours in a low-temperature oven. Then, next month, that same bucket can be taken back, dropped off and the other one taken home to treat.

Get the family involved as you dig through the closets, attic, basement, garage and all of those other areas that things get stored and forgotten about. Some of the best memories you've made with your family could be hidden in there – and you'll create more as you dig through the family history in the house. You can get through this and the dumpster and storage unit will help.