Sell or ship?
 

Our house is now under contract and should go unconditional within the next 2 weeks. We've been so focused on selling the house that we're only now thinking about the actual move back (Melbourne to UK).

OH & I in disagreement about what we should take back with regards to furniture. He says as little as possible, I say as much as we can, his thinking is that we won't get much for e.g our 6 year old leather settee - my thinking is that it has a few years life in it yet and would rather not spend loads of money replacing it and other things he would happily throw/sell.

Thoughts please! Especially from those who have made the move back! Hoping to head back early July and I'm very much looking forward to it. No regrets about coming to Oz, but no desire to stay here forever either!

Re: Sell or ship?
 

Hi we hope to have house on market in the next few weeks and my OH and me both have come to the reason to sell or ship almost nothing back to uk, when you look at DFS you can buy a designer sette for £595 thats a three/four sette, why spend loads on shipping volume back when you can buy new in uk for what it costs to ship.
Well done on a new chapter of your life:D
You only live once so go for it and make the most of what is around you where ever you end up:thumbup:

Re: Sell or ship?
 

Sorry for not replying sooner, but it's worth filling a 20' or 40' container to the hilt and bringing back all your possessions. Furniture and ornaments etc have some meaning to them which can outweigh monetary costs.
We brought everything back from Canada to Lancashire. We have no regrets about returning to Blighty, it's absolutely beautiful and quaint and historic and......
Good luck.
Where are you destined?

Re: Sell or ship?
 

Thanks, Trevski I had a quick look at DFS (think our leather settee was from there actually) and anything I liked was over £1k, my OH doesn't really do cheap so it could be a costly business to buy everything again, I suspect shipping would be cheaper.

Millicent - hoping to head for Leeds/York but will depend on jobs, we can be flexible!

Re: Sell or ship?
 

Hi have you had any quotes for containers yet as we will be going from Brisbane to Southampton docks and then on to midlands,we are looking at taking a ute back with us so we are thinking of placing personal items etc in that container with the ute

Re: Sell or ship?
 

I am not home yet but have been giving this a lot of thought as I shall be listing my house soon. If you go the container route there are online sites that give you the approximate cost to ship of items by volume. Sorry I didn't save the link... silly me. But I am sure you can find it and then do a comparison, i.e. it will cost x to ship, y to buy. That will give you some criteria on which to base your choice.
I am planning on taking back more than I had originally thought but only a few pieces of furniture such as my Grandmother's dining set and china cabinet. I still have a few pieces I am wondering about myself but will make final choices once I get shipping estimates which I think are going to be high as I am on an island :eek: and ferry costs are high to get to Vancouver.

Re: Sell or ship?
 

Hi, yes it's a toughy alright.. We've been through this same dilemma recently and have ended up deciding to fill a 20ft container for our return trip from SG. Despite the bulk of our furniture not been of great value, once we've filed half a container with the boxes of electrics, household items, ornaments, books, clothes, toys, shoes, bikes etc, it was only an extra 25% of the cost to fill a 20ft container and bring all the furniture aswell. Much of the IKEA furniture we'll flat pack to squeeze it in. Plus once we bring a full container we know it'll be there in 4 weeeks, whereas for groupage (shared container) it can take a month or 3... Good luck with your decision...

Re: Sell or ship?
 

I'd say the same as I'd say to people on the outward journey; take everything. Who has the time when in a new (figuratively speaking) to spend ages out and about looking for a houseful of furniture and who has the money? Yes you have to find the money to ship but speaking as a total non shopper, I'd much rather pay to transfer my stuff than pay out for stuff I've only just got rid of. Also there must be stuff that has a fair amount of emotion attached to it.

Re: Sell or ship?
 

For me, one of the best things about moving countries was the chance to declutter. It is very therapuetic. Now we are looking at properties in the UK, we are realising that our furniture would not have fit anyway or would have looked out of place. On top of that, you are going to get a good exchange rate on your money to compensate for any loss. How much life as your furniture got left in it anyway? Weigh that up with your shipping costs. Get ruthless, Rolf Harris music collections and boomerang wall hangings are not vogue anymore in the UK.

Re: Sell or ship?
 

I agree with your OH. Anything from DFS (Dodgy Furniture Store) is of questionable quality for the money.

Re: Sell or ship?
 

I have the shipping company coming in this Thursday...No point in taking anything electrical, the voltage is different from US to UK...Then I decided on sentimental goods, then my OH said he couldnt live without his Lazy Boy recliner...:)....any american furniture is being sold/left ( apart from recliner) as I know it wont fit in the rooms in the UK houses as they are much smaller...

I also gave away/sold anything I hadnt used, looked at or even touched in the last 12months...

Hope this helps...

Re: Sell or ship?
 

The one thing I don't understand is this "won't fit" idea. At first I took this at face value.. yes, agreed ... but when I look at houses on Rightmove, they all seem to have fairly large sofas and when I look on DFS they are about the same size as here. Also, I find the prices of sofas on DFS not inexpensive so now I am not sure what to do about my sofa. I am sure it will work out cheaper to ship than to buy a new one.

Re: Sell or ship?
 

LOL! Thanks for all the replies so far, as I thought - differing views!

We actually have 3 settees (one is a sofa bed). 1 is a large L-shaped one that I love, but suspect it won't fit in a lot of UK houses, it certainly wouldn't have fitted in the lounge in our last UK house and I think we'll be downsizing a bit - frankly we don't really need 3 sitting rooms! On the other hand L-shaped one cost $3k 2.5 years ago and I don't see us getting anywhere near that for it if we sold it.

I think we should just cram as much into a 20' container as we can. Given we're not taking anything electrical and we'll already have to buy all that again I think it makes sense to take settees, we probably won't bother with the kids' IKEA beds and will take our (UK King size) bed frame but the mattress needs chucking. Going to get some quotes and brace myself for further 'discussion' with the OH :eek:

Re: Sell or ship?
 

Why are you not taking your electricals?

Re: Sell or ship?
 

I didn't think tvs/fridges etc worked in the UK? And washing machines don't like being moved in my experience -and I don't like my current one much anyway. We'll be taking lamps and smaller things that are easy to change plugs on.