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Buy new or ship old ?

Buy new or ship old ?

Old May 7th 2006, 2:10 pm
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Default Buy new or ship old ?

I am trying to work out if it's cheaper to buy new furniture once i get to Canada or ship our old furniture. Does anyone know any stores which have web sites that i can look at for a comparison.
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Old May 7th 2006, 2:34 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by mandyg
I am trying to work out if it's cheaper to buy new furniture once i get to Canada or ship our old furniture. Does anyone know any stores which have web sites that i can look at for a comparison.
If you have good quality, high priced furniture then definately ship it over. Decent furniture is hideously expensive here, especially wooden furniture which is crazy when you consider the amount of lumber Canada produces.
A couple of the cheaper furniture stores with websites are:
http://www.thebrick.com/Application/...sp?SiteCode=EN and http://www.leons.ca/default.aspx?se=632825944656406250

HTH
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Old May 7th 2006, 2:47 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

We also looked at www.ikea.ca
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Old May 7th 2006, 3:27 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by mandyg
I am trying to work out if it's cheaper to buy new furniture once i get to Canada or ship our old furniture. Does anyone know any stores which have web sites that i can look at for a comparison.
We regretted not shipping our own furniture and all the kitchen things you collect over the years.
We found it really hard to find the same quality as our UK living room furniture we had had, Plus we spent a large chunk of our savings ( a lot more than we had estimated ) replacing it,
we had ended up giving a lot of our UK furniture away which we regretted,
My advice is to ship as much as possible, you forget about things like kitchen utensils for baking, bowls all that kind of thing, they are things that you will need and will wish you had taken them when its too late,
you will find it is more expensive to buy them there and your money will run away with you.
Shelly x
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Old May 7th 2006, 3:46 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by mandyg
I am trying to work out if it's cheaper to buy new furniture once i get to Canada or ship our old furniture. Does anyone know any stores which have web sites that i can look at for a comparison.
We shipped everything that we thought was useable including garden tools. We did not ship any electricals.
H
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Old May 7th 2006, 7:46 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by Elhombre
We shipped everything that we thought was useable including garden tools. We did not ship any electricals.
H
We too are planning to ship as much as possible, we have to ship all my OH beloved tools ! so seems worth taken everything apart from the electrics. (although it will be a good excuse to sort through the clutter we all seem to amass )
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Old May 7th 2006, 7:50 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

We shipped pretty much everything of ours - so so glad we did. The quality over here is far inferior in my opinion and not particularly cheap either. We brought most of our furniture and most of our electrical items, including TV's, VCR's, DVD's etc......very thankful for them as we can watch UK movies and home movies here. We brought most of our power tools aswell.

Personally I was ready to ditch all our stuff in the UK, but sensible husband suggested bringing it and if we didn't want it once here, we could give it away.......I am glad he said and even more pleased that we brought it all.
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Old May 7th 2006, 8:16 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Thanks for the info, i'm supprised that tiaribbon shipped electrical?. I know computers work on 120V but what about tv's etc?. If it's possible i've got a good home cinema kit that's multi region that i'd take.
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Old May 7th 2006, 8:24 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by mandyg
I am trying to work out if it's cheaper to buy new furniture once i get to Canada or ship our old furniture. Does anyone know any stores which have web sites that i can look at for a comparison.
We brought very little furniture this second time around (brought none the first time) - new furniture here is hideous and hideously expensive. We have furnished most of our house with second hand stuff from garage sales, thrift shops and dedicated second hand consignment stores....there are plenty in this area....near Goderich in southwestern Ontario.
Get a quote from your overseas remover - don't know where you are in UK, but we used Robinson's in Manchester - cannot recommend them highly enough. They will visit the house, do a "walk around" and give you various quotes based on what you want to take, what you might like to take etc. I wish we had brought more, but we limited it to our bed - because it's fairly new and very comfy, and an old Victorian bookcase because it's a family heirloom. We then brought stuff like bedding, kitchen equipment and personal items. My husband brought most of his vast tool collection. I wish we'd brought our comfy computer chair - very expensive here and not as good, likewise stuff like coffee tables. Look at what you have and what you cannot possibly do without. The cost of bringing stuff is not expensive compared to buying new over here. Obviously you can't use your electrical stuff and will have to buy new - most of which is fairly cheap - remember you have to add the tax on to everything here. In Ontario there are 2 taxes - Provincial and Government, making a 15% add on!! In some provinces there is only the GST, so check. DVDs and videos as a general rule don't work over here, so it's not worth bringing them.
As you pack your boxes, list the contents and number each one - makes your arrival at Customs SO much easier especially if you have a typed copy in your hand luggage.

Last edited by jude.evans; May 7th 2006 at 8:26 pm. Reason: Need to add something.....
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Old May 7th 2006, 8:32 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by Tiaribbon
We shipped pretty much everything of ours - so so glad we did. The quality over here is far inferior in my opinion and not particularly cheap either. We brought most of our furniture and most of our electrical items, including TV's, VCR's, DVD's etc......very thankful for them as we can watch UK movies and home movies here. We brought most of our power tools aswell.

Personally I was ready to ditch all our stuff in the UK, but sensible husband suggested bringing it and if we didn't want it once here, we could give it away.......I am glad he said and even more pleased that we brought it all.
Hi - I'm interested in your comments re electrical stuff, We sold TV and VCR etc but brought a few videos and DVDs, none of which work here in Ontario - so what have you got that we haven't? This is the second time for us in Canada and we found the same thing years ago - UK stuff will not work here. We brought back our Canadian power tools, but sold the UK stuff - so, please, what's the secret?
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Old May 7th 2006, 8:35 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by jude.evans
We brought very little furniture this second time around (brought none the first time) - new furniture here is hideous and hideously expensive. We have furnished most of our house with second hand stuff from garage sales, thrift shops and dedicated second hand consignment stores....there are plenty in this area....near Goderich in southwestern Ontario.
Get a quote from your overseas remover - don't know where you are in UK, but we used Robinson's in Manchester - cannot recommend them highly enough. They will visit the house, do a "walk around" and give you various quotes based on what you want to take, what you might like to take etc. I wish we had brought more, but we limited it to our bed - because it's fairly new and very comfy, and an old Victorian bookcase because it's a family heirloom. We then brought stuff like bedding, kitchen equipment and personal items. My husband brought most of his vast tool collection. I wish we'd brought our comfy computer chair - very expensive here and not as good, likewise stuff like coffee tables. Look at what you have and what you cannot possibly do without. The cost of bringing stuff is not expensive compared to buying new over here. Obviously you can't use your electrical stuff and will have to buy new - most of which is fairly cheap - remember you have to add the tax on to everything here. In Ontario there are 2 taxes - Provincial and Government, making a 15% add on!! In some provinces there is only the GST, so check. DVDs and videos as a general rule don't work over here, so it's not worth bringing them.
As you pack your boxes, list the contents and number each one - makes your arrival at Customs SO much easier especially if you have a typed copy in your hand luggage.
Thanks for the info Jude.
We're currently in Wigan looking at either Vancouver or Calgary depending on where we can afford once we get the visa's
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Old May 7th 2006, 9:12 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by jude.evans
Hi - I'm interested in your comments re electrical stuff, We sold TV and VCR etc but brought a few videos and DVDs, none of which work here in Ontario - so what have you got that we haven't? This is the second time for us in Canada and we found the same thing years ago - UK stuff will not work here. We brought back our Canadian power tools, but sold the UK stuff - so, please, what's the secret?
Our British TV's, VCR's and DVD machines work perfectly here and they are multi-region so play British ones aswell as Canadian ones. Husband sorted the electrical system in the house to accept them and we even have British sockets in our house so that I can use UK items without having to go through a transformer. Apparently it is easy if you also have 220V coming into your house. I know nothing about re-wiring although I did post what he did and how he did it on this site some time back.

Anyway the bottom line is; yes you can use your British TV's, electrical goods and most power tools here.
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Old May 8th 2006, 1:41 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

I brought my sewing maching and a couple of electrical items with me, and I'm glad I did. I just run the machine off a transformer and it works perfectly!
We brought just about everything with me, and again, I'm so glad we did - it would have cost an arm and a leg to replace everything here and the quality is generally inferior to UK stuff.
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Old May 8th 2006, 1:53 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by mandyg
Thanks for the info Jude.
We're currently in Wigan looking at either Vancouver or Calgary depending on where we can afford once we get the visa's
LOL, why not add Toronto to the list then you've got the three most expensive markets in Canada????
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Old May 8th 2006, 2:19 pm
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Default Re: Buy new or ship old ?

Originally Posted by mandyg
I am trying to work out if it's cheaper to buy new furniture once i get to Canada or ship our old furniture. Does anyone know any stores which have web sites that i can look at for a comparison.
We shipped all the electrical hand tools (drills, saws, pressure washer etc), small kitchen items (toaster, kettle, mixers, grills etc), misc items (foot spa - don' ask) and we have two 220v sockets in the house (one in kitchen and the other in the garage.) We figured that with what we would get selling these items and the cost of replacing them in Canada we would never replace them all so better to ship them.

We shipped the hi-fi and that runs ok on 110v with a transformer.

We bought new fridge, TVs, washing machine, dryer, microwave, dishwasher - all tended to be more expensive than UK prices.

For us this was right balance and maybe we should have shipped a few more items like the dyson as it's amazing the expenses you incurr when moving into a new house without replacing items that where it can be avoided.
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