Winterdiva

Hurlabrick

Furniture is expensive in Canada. It seems to either be cheap and OK or high end and expensive, little in between.

As regards cheaper but OK furniture stores in reach of KW, try either Structube, or Ikea (in Burlington), maybe Teppermans (L9ndon, ON), as well of course as the usual box stores like Leons, The Brick etc.

Container transport for even a 20 ft container would be at least GBP 4 - 5k. If you ship one thing you msy as well ship everything and fill up the container. Be aware that bed sizes are different, albeit by an inch or so. So a UK king is a Canadian queen.

Winterdiva

Thanks Hurlabrick

Please can you list some high-end stores too, so I can compare? We have solid oak here, is it solid maple there to compare? Or is Oak/ Teak widely used there too?

plasticcanuck

dbd33

We need a round table and four chairs for the kitchen. A simple requirement, one might think; maybe a couple of grand. But, Everything available around here, approximately the K-W area, is formica tat as offered by "the usual box stores like Leons, The Brick etc." Better quality but the same stuff as everyone else has from IKEA or more expensive than the building in which it will be used, Mennonite made-to-order. Some friends rented a van and bought their dining table and chairs in whichever Carolina has the furniture shops. I expect I'll look around when I'm in England in May see what's on offer. I'll have one squint at the Home Hardware scratched and dented shop in Kitchener before doing so.

My view is that, anything that doesn't spin or heat up should be brought. If nothing else, who wants to arrive in a new country and drag around the shops spending money? Money much needed for other things at that point in life. Unload the familiar, comfortable stuff, and go and see the covered bridge instead.

Hurlabrick

Precisely what I was going to say! KW is smack dab in the heart of Mennonite country! Google 'mennonite furniture' for high quality, handmade solid wood furniture. That will also mean quite a traditional look!

For high quality but mid range designer furniture (i.e. NOT Ligne Roset etc.), try google on Austin & Taylor in London (we have just ordered a sectional and two chairs from them). My answers are of course 'London-centric' coz that is where we live, I do know that Structube are a QC / ON chain with stores in most places.

Bow21

BristolUK

That sounds like me. In other threads, over several years a common view is that it's more expensive to buy than to ship. But I think that experience applies if one has high end stuff.
My house in Bristol was furnished with stuff from places like DFS, Ikea, Queensland (Beds), Allied Carpets, Park Furnishers and appliances/electricals from Currys and Comet.

I got the equivalent quality things here from Leons, Ikea, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Best Buy and prices were very similar to what I had paid in England, several years earlier.

You can look up items on Ikea UK, convert the price to $ and then check the very same item on Ikea Canada and the $$ price is less.

Hurlabrick

For beds, you could try 'Sleep Country'.

Vulcanoid

This was similar to us - was way, way cheaper to offload beds, desks, bookcases etc onto friends family and tip, pay £180 to take over 6 suitcases of general stuff, and repurchase equivalents on the other side - the shipping costs would have been about twice as much (never mind the simple logistics of moving it all around, and the issues of it it was necessary you'd be without it for weeks, if it wasn't necessary you were paying to move it).

Partially discharged

This place is near me

The Amish Store, Balderson real estate: About Us

Its not near any significant Amish communities as far as I can tell but they state all of their furniture is made by Amish in Ohio. Any ideas if this place is legit or if this stuff was made offshore.

The best example I've even seen of Amish craftsmanship was here

https://whitepillars.com/about-craftsman-suites/

at a B & B we stayed in built by local Amish.

Oakvillian

This is one of the most frequently debated topics on here - the nature of the advice hasn't changed much over the years.

The distilled wisdom seems to have been captured in the first half-dozen posts, but in essence, you'll need to make up your own mind what relative value you put on time, money, convenience, and familiarity. Here's my $0.02 in the issue:

If you sell everything and move with the bare minimum, you'll need to buy everything you need quickly on arrival in Canada. That means you won't be able to wait for sale pricing in the big stores, and will have to spend your first couple of weeks trailing around various emporia looking for the right deals and giving your credit card a thorough work out. You still won't have everything straight away, as even the big-box stores don't usually offer same-day delivery and the higher-end places may have a delivery delay of a couple of weeks to over a month - and more, obviously, if you're buying custom furniture. Plus, of course, you'll need all the small stuff too - toaster, kettle, kitchenware, etc - that is a lot of decisions to make in a short time.

If you decide to bring everything that isn't nailed down, you'll have to wait for the container to arrive, so you'll be effectively camping out until then. Bear in mind, though, what your domestic arrangements will be in your first weeks. Are you staying in a hotel or AirBnB for the first little while? How are you going to look for a house? Most rentals are unfurnished but come with major appliances (fridge, cooker, washer/dryer etc). Many homes for sale will also include major appliances, or at least offer the option to a buyer.

Even if you think you'll need to replace much of your existing furniture in time, think of the advantages of not having to do it all at once in a rush. If you're buying dining table, couch, beds, chairs, etc., then there's a strong possibility the savings you can make, overall, by picking and choosing your time to buy may significantly offset the cost of shipping everything in the first place.

Look again at shipping costs, too. If you don't have enough stuff to fill a 20' container, then consider groupage. You wait a bit longer for your stuff, but it's cheaper. Or, do what we did: realizing we had more crap than would fill a 20' container, but not enough for a 40', we went to salerooms and bought some well priced vintage pieces - dining chairs, bedside tables, a chest of drawers, that sort of thing - to fill up the container... we knew we'd be furnishing a much larger space than the 700 sq ft apartment we were moving out of! But then again, I like that "shabby chic" aesthetic of mid-quality Edwardian oak furniture that has a little more finesse to it than most of what you can find in big box stores, at a fraction of the price of getting a Mennonite joiner to make it.

BristolUK

Excellent post and it shows that with either option you may be 'without' for a bit.

Prior to our move from Montreal to Moncton, my wife and I visited The Brick to get a good idea of cost, look and comfort having ascertained a similar quality/appearance to stuff sold at Leons here. The Brick hadn't moved here at that time.

Shortly before the big move we looked over Leons website and picked the stuff we wanted and on the day we got the keys we went to the Leons store to get it, swapping around one or two things on our list. It was done on the morning of our first day.

The house came with appliances - fairly common - except for washer/dryer and we added the smaller elctricals over the following days.

A bed, loads of bedding, computer and my wife's personal stuff - books etc - arrived from Montreal on the first day too but until Leons delivered two days later, our bed was a 'mattress' of quilts on the floor. It was comfortable enough in the short term.

Obviously this depends on the individual but buying loads of new stuff for a new home was actually a lot of fun.
One small regret, we bought from memory of when we'd seen the house two months earlier and we overdid the purchase of sofas. Should have replaced one with a couple of chairs.

Hurlabrick

We too bought a new 'guest bed' until our regular one arrived from the UK, but had to wait 10 days for the Canadian bed to arrive. Until then we slept on a Canadian Tire blow up mattress on the floor!

BristolUK

I slept - I say slept but I didn't really - on one of those when we visited the in-lays. It was horrible.

Quilts on the floor were better.