rugbymum

Hi this may be the wrong place to ask but I am sure someone will re-direct me if it is (please).
We are currently trying to ebay /boot fair sell off or give away the stuff in our house that we will not use/need in Canada (Calgary hopefully - fingers crossed). ;
We are looking to keep transportation costs down as is everyone I am sure but we also do not want to have to replace perfectly good items that we should have packed. We are planning to bring our beds and bedding as we hear it is expensive to replace and the sizes are different and we are leaving our white goods as we have been informed that they will not work in Canada. However we still seem to be bursting out of our 20 foot container. So our question is what do you wish you had brought with you and what should you have left behind??. FYI we have 3 boys 8, 12 & 12and are bringing lots of ski & snowboard stuff and kayaks, bikes etc. We are not so sure about chests of drawers wardrobes etc.
Hope you can advise

iaink

What would I bring from /leave in the UK?



Family


On a more serious note the only thing of "value" I brought with me was my Golf Clubs, and thats arguable.

Bramley

All we brought were things of sentimental value and sold the rest. Furniture, TVs, beds etc are no more expensive in Canada to England, in fact you'll actually find that some things are cheaper in Canada. I wouldn't bother bringing chest of drawers or beds the prices are pretty good here for a full bedroom set if you shop around. I'd bring your winter gear because it can work out pretty costly here depending what activities you choose to take up.

Miss Clinique

Family, they are the only thing I left behind. I gave away electrical stuff, apart from lamps, I bought those with me.

You can replace chest of drawers ect, but I am so glad I bought mine, when every thing else around you is unfamiliar, it nice to have familiar things around you at home.

So get a 40 foot container and bring the bloomin lot

My opinion only

MikeUK

But consider if you sell it you'll get a pittance, the cost of shipping is less than what you’d pay if you sell and then try to buy again.

First time I came over I sold almost everything and re-bought!

Being much more aware of the cost second time round.. Tidied out what I didn’t need or use and brought the rest

SimonB1964

I brought a mini hi fi here 20 years ago, records, tapes etc.
But i left the ex-wife in the UK.........................

Bramley

Selling everything was the best decision in our situation due to us renting our property in the UK...however, this may not suit everyone.

Piff Poff

If I had to do it all over again, I would bring everything (apart from wardrobes). We didn't expect the nightmare it was to find furniture we liked, we didn't expect the houses to be as big - of course we knew they were bigger but we moved from a 2 bed two up two down to a monsterous 5 bed three bath - and then had to try and furnish it......we gave up and downsized to something smaller, but we are still lacking in furnishings for the basement, if we had brought more, then at least we would have had a start.

The reason I say leave the wardrobes is most houses (all the houses I have seen) have built in wardrobes.

Almost Canadian

I find the suggestion that furniture costs the same either side of the Atlantic bizarre. If your UK furniture is from IKEA this may be true, if you have quality wooden furniture it certainly isn't. Have a quick look at websites like the Brick etc to see how much you will be charged for beds that, in reality, are shite.

I would bring all that you can. You mention kayaks. They are way more expensive here than their equivalents in the UK.

Bramley

Like anything else, you get what you pay for.

Lorry1

I totally agree with this. I am so glad we brought our dining table and beds with us cos we have found that good quality (or even half decent quality) furniture is very expensive here
It took ages to get the kids bedroom furniture cos all I could find was thin wood (if that's what you call it) that would fall apart after 5 minutes and we still have nothing but a bed in our room
The cheap stuff really is crap. Argos sold cheap crap but at least it would last a good couple of years. The cheap stuff here doesn't!

We bought a good leather sofa here from The Brick and got an HD TV thrown in

You don't need wardrobes as they have closets here.

We brought kids toys and sentimental stuff (basically boxes full of crap that we still haven't unpacked after 3 years )

We brought a few kitchen things (hubby insisted we bring our good saucepans lol)

Good luck

terese677

I rought everything and I'm glad I did, it can cost a load to refurnish and the choice for cheaper furniture isn't as broad ( personal opinion)

lins and Stef McLachlan

Hi
We are hopefully making the move over in July with the entire contents of a 4 bed house and also with some extra furniture we have accumulated in the garage over the four year wait we have had. We were aware from the outset that our Canada House would be bigger, so when we changed the Three Piece, we kept the old one (well it wasn't old...just wanted leather).

We have bought the extra beds we will need and have opted for a 40' container and negotiated a good shipping rate of £5333 for that. We do have a little room, but I intend filling it with some favourite store cupboard items, like squash, Andrex loo rolls, and a few essentials. I have also bought more bedding as the quilt sizes will be different there.

I will take my hairdryer and straightening tongs as these are okay with a travel adaptor, and we are also taking two tv's which are new and do have other uses...the 46" we will use as a gaming station and the 22" has a dvd and Ipod docking station.

My personal rule of thumb has been, take it all...coz it will cost to replace it and you would get next to nothing for it if it was sold off here. You just can't give it all away here.

Hope this helps
Stef

TheThornes

We brought over just about everything too and have no regrets on that one. Didn't bring our sofas but that was really because they'd seen better days and needed replacing anyway. Obviously didn't bring any major electrical stuff either. Most houses will have some major appliances in already. Ours did and we managed to get some good deals on what else we needed. We brought a lot of stuff from The Brick and got quite a bit knocked off the price as we were buying so much from them - sofas, floor rug, washer, dryer, TVs, DVD players, microwaves, even a bed and bedroom furniture for a spare room.

I agree with previous comments that it's not worth bringing wardrobes as the houses do all have built in closets. We brought over a couple of wardrobes but wish we hadn't really - they are now just sitting and being used for alternative storage in the kids' playroom and in the office.

The other bits I brought over but wished I hadn't was smaller electrical items such as hairdryers and small kitchen bits like a mixer and electric knife etc. I thought they would be OK with travel adaptors but, apart from the electric toothbrush and label printer, they didn't work properly. Even the hairdryers didn't work properly - more of soft breeze - not enough power to dry your hair! Besides, things like hairdryers and mixers etc are cheap enough to buy over here.

Very glad we brought our beds over too. They are all wood frame beds so we were able to dismantle them beforehand so they didn't take up so much room in the container. We found beds over here were expensive.

I also agree with previous comments in that you usually end up with a bigger property over here so will need more furniture to fill it anyway so having a fair bit of stuff already is a bonus. It's true that if you sell your stuff before coming over, you won't get much for it (probably) as it will be second hand but it will cost you a lot to replace over here if you buy new.

Good luck with everything.

Miss Clinique

Do your self a favour and find a small corner for towels, I find those expensive here, places like dunelm are really cheap, and good quality.