Got the sensible head on tonight

I agree with all these folk-Bring as much as you can. We left so much behind and I regret it now. I was so keen to get new stuff but the replacement cost soon adds up. You see we have a much bigger house and visitors coming soon. WE have 2 empty rooms and nowhere for anyone to sleep

Things I wish I wish I'd brought-
the kitchen and bathroom bins
the washing baskets
the laundry basket
a foldaway foam bed
a pine bed
garden tools
bedside cabinets

They seemed trivial at the time but they would be sooo useful right now.

I AM glad we left our wardrobes behind- most houses here have walk in or built in robes. (WIRs and BIRs)

I would also say to bring fluffy UK towels (much better than those here).

ALi

My husband is convinced that it would be cheaper to furnish a house in Oz than pay 3,500-4,000 pounds to ship stuff over. Where do you buy things like beds, sofas etc from over there? Do you know of any web sites we could look at ?
Thanks,
Ang

this was a search and i put in tea chest and this is part of 1 of the threads
may be worth having a look at this ifyou aint got aload of Huge things to take!

We are only taking similar to yourselves and are using www.sevenseas.co.uk. Sending stuff by ship so as to make the price cheaper though.

You pack the stuff yourselves, but I prefer that anyway - means we can gradually decide what we want to take and dont want. They send you boxes, tape, bubble wrap etc to pack your stuff - when you have done it you ring them and they collect the next day, to go out on the ship that week (one per week). Stuff gets delivered to your door at the far end.

£85 for first t-chest and £45 for each tea chest after that. I am surprised how much seems to fit into the T-chests!!


just a thought!

I have found that you mostly have to go to the shops (in Perth). They advertise heavily in local newspapers. I certainly tried web searches for electrical goods initially but it wasn't like the UK where Currys and Comet have sites detailing the prices. It took me a wee while to realise that the shops here operate quite differently.
I assumed Harvey Norman was equivalent to say John Lewis (sells electricals, furnishing etc) but it turns out that each dept of the shop is run as a separate franchise. You also have to haggle a little to get the best price.

I personally don't like a lot of the cheaper Aussie made stuff here (clothes and furnishings). It s just not on a par with equivalent UK stuff. I think if you have half decent stuff bring it.

There's IKEA here so you can get some cheap household stuff- there is less stock here though.

I have picked up some lovely second hand furniture and enjoy scouring the ads in the paper. I bought a beautiful pine table for 90 dollars. If you have the time you can get good stuff cheaply. I have also delighted in buying beautiful recycled wooden tables and chairs- the wood is just lovely-but they should have left it in the forests.

Good luck
Ali

[Thanks guys for the info, I was looking at our stuff today and was thinking could we bring over the wooden table and chairs (because they are wood) probably a stupid question but.........................

We would have a 45 inch telly to bring
the sofa and chairs (but these are leather can we bring them)
a computer
xbox
play stations

just photos and stuff, we have no carpets or anything (wooden floors)

just wondering if it is worth it

cheers lace x

How many cubic feet is half a container?

Also, do you fit much into half a one?

Thanks for all your information. Most of our stuff is due for replacement so I think it will be the T chest route for us.

The wooden stuff is fine, they are only looking for stuff that may be infested with beasties, and coming from the uk i dont think you will have a problem, its too bloody cold for the beasties they are looking for!!

All electrical stuff is fine, it just takes ages to get all the plugs changed over, we took our tv and it works fine.

it will save you an arm and a table leg

Do you get to keep them afterwards?

You can make some lovely furniture out of Tea Chests!!

hi there gail,nice to see you again
i dont think furniture here is any cheaper or more exoensive,it really depends on where yo shop and what you want,but we bought most things with us and im glad we did,when you first get here most of your time will be taken up with touring round areas trying to find out where you want to live and then once you ve found an area looking for a decent rental, you ll need to buy a car and find your way around,this isnt easy when everything is new to you,it s took us weeks to find out what shop to go for what and its very time consuming,im so glad i didnt have to go and but all our furniture as well
not only that your belongings are what makes your home, your home,i think having familiar stuff around you will help you settle in

tracey

Hi there, well you are going to think we are MAD! we came with 5 suitcases and 5 t chest. We got to Bunbury 17 th Dec, not a bloody t spoon did we have , no xmas pressy for kids, new life new strt thats what we thought.
Went to Macro and got pots and pans etc.
Our tchest did not get here til Feb, so we got what we needed. I had older kids coming over on 21st so i could not get kids pressys til then as i had no one to babysit. Any way we was all sorted for xmas eve, now as for bringing your stuff over, i do regret not bringing some things, but we had had beds for years, we was ready for a new suite, most of our bed room furniture was built in. The nicest stuff we had was dining furniture [limed oak] and i wish we had brought that with us. But anyway i dont think the furniture here was too expensive, it depends what you want, some examples :
table and8 chairs 8 [ harvey norman] 1600 dollars
corner cream leather suite seats 10 [harvey norman] 3,900 dollars
Fridge Freezer harvey norman 2000 dollars
washer front loader [harvey norman] 500 dollars
It really is a personal thing. Denise

Your husband is wrong. If you want anything resembling quality you have to pay big dollars here in Australia. Everything else is "made in China crap" and will fall apart within days.

I've always been told, and goin with it too, that if it's of decent quality and condition, take it!

Bring it all! We crammed as much as we could into a 20 foot container, but still are short of things here. You can spend a lot in the first few months buying stuff and if you can avoid it, do. I regret getting rid of our old dining room chairs - can't find anything I like here thats old and cheap! Couldn't have fitted in the washing machine and tumble drier - but wish I could have. Arriving in winter time has meant I ended up renting a tumble drier anyway.

My advice would be go for a 20 foot container and stuff it to the brim. We were adding stuff right to the end as they packed us up, we had some "see if it fits and we'll take it" stuff and most of that came.