saville

Hi all! We,re hopefully coming to adelaide next year and as we're putting house up for sale soon we want to start thinking about what items to keep.
Can anyone advise us please from your own experience what is best? To take all your furniture with you or buy new once you get out there.
For people who bought new what is the furniture like out there,and how cheap is it. and also how big are the crates for just taking bare essentials ie
photos etc. Sorry to go on.

charb

We didn't take any furniture, just personal belongings - toys, pics etc. We paid for 99 cuft - which equalled about 12 boxes plus a couple of other things wrapped up. That came to jus under £700 including insurance. (Pickfords)

As for furniture when we got here, as we are renting for a year, we didn't want to spend a lot on furninshing a house that isn't ours, IYKWIM. Not sure whether they are everywhere, but we headed down to 'Fantastic Furniture' & for just over £2k we kitted out the whole house - sofas, beds, coffee & dining table etc etc. Of course the quality isn't that great, but it's fine for the year here & will definitely do until we are in our own place & start replacing things.

conkeracorn

We are in the same dilemma.
We don't have any heirlooms, but loads of kids (x3) stuff etc and good basics. We are planning to take some things with us and just buy the rest when we are there. Hopefully we can share a container for the essentials and get rid of the rest. This should cut down on th cost considerably. My sister moved to Auckland in '05 and car booted loads of stuff.
I think that's what we will do.
Wendy

Vanessa

Personally I would take as much as you can, if the items are in reasonable condition. Three reasons for this. The cost of replacing everything far outweighs the cost of shipping. The stress of trying to replace everything when you first arrive, particularly when you don't know the shops and best places to go etc etc and thirdly they give you something familiar to have around you, and so you don't feel that everything is alien.

DerekM

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I agree with this, if the stuff is reasonable quality take it. The major things we did not take were wardrobes as 99 per cent of houses here have builtins. If its going to cost 3 grand to ship, its going to cost a lot more to replace equivalent quality and the time spent replacing it when you have other things to do. You need to have a look at what you have got with a critical eye and decide what you need out here and what to take and what to get rid of. Washing m/c's for example, we had a good quality fairly new one. We brought it, changed the plug and away it went. A new one of the same quality would be $1200 at least to replace. And saved a day or so of running about getting it.

Jox_co

Might be a stupid question, but how long before your stuff arrives?

If we rent, and it doesn't arrive for weeks, what do we do then?

We have already got rid of loads of stuff, but with 2 kids, still got a lot. We had planned to take much of the kids stuff for familiarity, but really don't know.

Jayne

rodandhayley

Good advice when the kids saw all their toys and bits arrived it made so much sense

nfernand

I brought all my stuff from London including 3 seater, 2 seater and single seater sofar and.....my car, all packed into a single 20 ft container. First the car went inside the container, then they caged the car followed by sofas on top of the car.

Well worth it !!!! no hassel.... shipent arrived within 8 week. One wked roughed out in London, followed by one wk holiday 5 wks at friends place in sydney until I found a rental propert and within next wk the shippment arrived. well timed.

ps - do not ship a cheap car or a car which is not owned by you for ateast 2 yrs.

Sleeping Beauty

.....mmm, if i had my time over again, i would bring almost everything! we changed from bringing nothing but clothes, to a bit more (washer/drier/beds/limited kids toys (they had to get rid of quite a bit)). i wish we had brought more, tbh. it's was nice for all of us to see our old stuff, especially the kids, it helped them settle better i think.

somme

What do you class as a cheap car and why not?

I was thinking of bringing my C3 deisal only 4 years old and only 32,000 miles on the clock!!

northernbird

I agree, I have done 3 international moves and taken everything each time (well travelled sofas!) To me having my own bits and pieces really helps and trailing around shopping for stuff (particularly if you have kids) is a pain in the rear.

Rbecca

TAKE AS MUCH AS YOU CAN!!!
I got rid of tonnes of stuff before I went. My stuff is over there waiting for me and I am still here waiting for the house to sell (very long story!). Meanwhile I went to validate my visa and to have a really good look at things price wise. It was a nasty shock as I thought everything was cheaper down under. When a friend went a few weeks ago with a whole container I asked if I could send a bit of stuff with her. I went out and bought bedding, towels, kitchenware; things I could get of reasonable/good quality at the supermarket or Debenhams. I would have bought more but I wasn't sure things would fit in. My friend took her swanky dishwasher, washer and dryer too which I would have done in hindsight (if I had had swanky stuff to start with!). You can't pop into the supermarket in Oz for a new kettle, toaster, video, dvd player at great prices because the supermarkets don't sell them. You have to go the a more specialised shop which sell things for more specialised prices.
And books! Take books with you. All your favourites that you thought you'd just replace rather than pack. Buy and take the ones you thought you might read in the future. Take the children's books to pass on to younger ones in years to come. Books are very expensive. I like books.

Rebecca

Nick11

Totally agree with you.We've bought everything - so glad we did.I even went to tesco before we came and got washing baskets,ironing boards etc - really miffed I didn't get a rotary line, as they're $190 at Bunnings!!!My huuby laughed at me!
The kids are really looking forward to getting their stuff here - we packed everything - crap included!

DebiE

Hi,

We took our furniture because we had a full 20ft container to ourselves. We just filled it up with all the things we wanted and needed to take...it costs the same regardless!! Although we did leave some bits behind and wish we hadn't.

When we arrived, we rented an unfurnished house and waited for our belongings to arrive. They arrived 2 months after the estimated arrival date due to a shipping problem.

Rather than sit on the floor and sleep on airbeds, we decided to go and invest in a new bed and a nice new leather suite. Very nice, if I do say!! Our bed/mattress cost approx $2500 and our 2 and 3 seater leather sofa roughly the same. We bought from Harvey Norman at Domain, Gold Coast. I'm not sure if there's one in Adelaide?

Ikea is over here...which is fantastic! If you want something cheap to tide you over, Ikea has some really nice, inexpensive furniture. Have a look at their website - www.ikea.com

My advice is to take as much with you as possible...unless you have a bottomless wallet. We spent more than we wanted, due to unforeseen problems and started eating into our savings. You'll be surprises how much things add up and if you are like us, you'll get carried away!!

sla453

Hi,

Roughly, what dimensions are the boxes??