Bit of a random post as we've still got so long to go but I was just wondering for those who are nearly there or those who have already made it... what furniture did you take with you and did you take other things like TV's and electrical goods with you?

We're just decorating a room in our house at the moment in the UK and my argument is that we should just buy cheap furniture for now as we'll prob only get 2 ish years out of it and then will get rid of it, whereas OH thinks that we would take everything out with us to save costs of rebuying it all.

So I just wanted to figure out really what the majority of people do... and if it's worth shipping stuff over or if it's easier to just start again when you get out there.

Hi Tempest,

We moved over a few weeks back and brought alot of our furniture with us .

My O/H wanted to buy all new but as we had alot of other bits & pieces to bring over we decided on a container, so made sense to fill it with our furniture anyways .

We didn't bring no electrical goods, we sold them with the house, all in.

If I knew then what I know now I would of brought alot more with us and would of made a definite trip to IKEA (we don't have one near us).

I also think that furniture here is alot more expensive than in the UK.

Hi,

Yes we have found that furniture is more expensive over here, but electrical items are cheaper.

We moved over in 2006 (and love it here) but before moving we did lots of garage sales which was ideal for getting rid of the things that we had accumulated over the years that we did not want to take.

One thing that I did regret doing was selling off all my gardening tools and garage shelving. I think that because we were buying a brand new home, which did not even have the sod down, I figured that I would not need gardening tools for a while. I sold the tools for next to nothing in the UK and it wasn't long before I was shelling out for the same tools over here. When you bring over gardening tools etc, just ensure that they have been cleaned off properly (with the likes of Jays Fluid) and it will be fine.

When you first arrive it is a time of a lot of financial outlay, so think very carefully about the things you will want to bring with you.

Hope this helps.

The voltage in Canada is different. See the Wiki article called Compatibility of Goods-Canada.

Also see the Wiki called Shipping-Canada. I wrote the Dissenting Opinion section at the end of that article, and Surrey Expat contributed to it.

If you have time on your hands and want to explore the various issues you'll encounter in relocating to Canada, you may find it useful to read all the Wiki articles in the Moving Logistics-Canada section of the Wiki.
x

Thanks Judy (as always!) I've bought a notepad and pen today to start making my way through the Wiki articles!

And thanks everyone for your feedback... I guess I veiw it as new life, new start and therefore we won't really take that much with you but as you say wallace that there are somethings (like gardening tools) that really you might as well take with you as they're so handy and there's also a huge amount of finance needed to restock everything you used to have!

I think i'm going to go on wiki mode tonight!

We brought pretty much everything except a fridge freezer (that wasn't dual voltage despite being made in the USA, obviously for export only ), rear projector TV, fish tank, Ikea wardrobe, Ikea fabric sofa, garden furniture. Mr B wishes he'd brought the garden stuff as it's pricey here, taken 3 summers to replace it!!

Knowing we wouldn't have an Ikea anywhere near us in Winnpeg we brought some unopened kids flatpack stuff, unopened crockery, wish we'd brought some unopened bookcases from there too - I assumed we could get cheap bookcases anywhere but there's nothing like the Ikea Billy range for adding on to! When we did mail order them from Ikea to Winnipeg, the shipping cost almost as much as the bookcases

You need to look at what you've got, tot it up, browse some Canadian websites and tot up replacement costs. Also it's nice to have familiar stuff around you - it's like Xmas when your container gets unpacked at your new house

We didn't bring much in the way of electric stuff, we took a risk on a couple of things thinking they had dual voltage and they hadn't so had to buy a voltage converter but probably only fetched about handful of stuff electrical wise which was dual and easily changed the plug. Furniture wise we needed new in the UK so decided to wait until we came over. We are just buying stuff as we need it and hubby going to make stuff like spare bed, cupboards as he now has started buying his dream workshop with the tools he has always wanted but couldn't afford in the UK

We brought most of our stuff with us - what we thought would survive the crossing!

I certainly am pleased to have my 'things' here and I truly believe that it has helped the children settle better and more quickly to have their bedroom bits and toys here.

Obviously we had several boot sales to get rid of old bits we didn't really need and the old toys were given to charity etc.

We are lucky enough to have a bigger house here than in the UK, so I'm glad that we brought all our furniture. We still had to buy extra pieces for the house, but the cost to replace everything would be huge! Didn't bother too much with electrics though. We did pack our DVD and video player and our portable tv to watch all our UK films on - and a year later we still haven't got round to buying a step up converter!!! Must really miss all those videos

Totally agree, its so nice to see all our 'familiar' things, having photos up and even the cushions on the sofa which I missed.

I don't think I can stress how much you can miss IKEA until you live without one (how sad I am )

Yep, we brought our beds/bedroom furniture and it is nice for the kids to feel like they have their belongings back with them

Get down to Leons.
I was there with my mum a couple of weeks ago and was well impressed.

Hi Tempest,

We covered our experience of this in our article elsewhere on BE. Look for the section on Removals...

http://britishexpats.com/articles/canada/uk-to-alberta/

In short, looking back, we would have taken more than we did and we nearly filled a 20ft contained as it was!

Kind regards,

Eamonn & Janet.

It all depends. If you really love your things and there is a lot of stuff you could not live without, you might as well hire a container. If you already have a lot you are taking without the new furniture, I don't think a bit of extra nice furniture would matter. But if you were considering coming with the bare minimum and don't have much you were planning to take anyway, it may be better to go with the cheap stuff.

If you are one of those people who is going to come here jobless - I would actually suggest not taking much at all. It makes it easier to return to the UK if you do need to go back. We did not have much - 4 bags and 4 boxes we shipped with seapost and it was expensive to ship by seapost, so we are now giving a lot of our things away and only taking back the bare minimum - sentimental value type things.

One thing you should consider is that by choosing the furniture in light with your future plans, you are actually putting your life on hold for your dream. We did the same thing - while we lived in the UK waiting for the move to Canada, we never bought anything nice, even though we really loved certain things. Now that we are going back, I am thinking that we should maybe enjoyed and lived life a little more while out there rather than basing all decisions on our future plans.

We are hoping to be out there shortly, and we were planning to take everything (minus electricals) with us. However the people that are buying our house offered us a deal we couldn't refuse for it being fully furnished which means we will now only have a few boxes of personal effects to ship!

Pretty much what Nicola said ......... even though mine were teenagers it made a huge difference having their 'stuff' around, kinda makes it feel more homely.
We also brought the TV, video, CD player & playstation so we could watch old family videos & so that my son could use the playstation, all it needed was a step-up converter .......... it still gets used daily in the basement!!

Also because we never had jobs to come to I bought a fair bit of new stuff while I was still working in the UK .... I didn't know what sort of budget we'd have to play with so was a bit bothered about the costs .

I am hoping to take next to nothing with me. My husband wants to take some of his books that would cost too much to replace and ideally would like to buy a laptop before we go, but other than that I don't really want to take anything other than the usual clothes and things.

I would have thought that I would be in the majority but it seems I'm not. Granted I don't have an IKEA near me so maybe I am missing somethingWill be glad to be near one when we move

We are trying to sell as much as possible just now. Mind you my tastes in decor have changed since we purchased this house so taking over furniture for me would be pointless. Nah, for me it's new life new stuff, plus think of all that shopping I now get to do...