furniture help
 

hi sue and tony from manchester, on our way, just need to know what to do about furniture we will be getting a container is it worth our while getting stuff we will need here before we go,e.g. our boys need new beds do we leave the old ones and buy new when we get there or buy here to take with us. have tried to research on internet, what a job, could someone point us in the direction of furniture stores so we can price up. thanks. Sue & Tony

Re: furniture help
 

Hi would hve been better to post on general info board and mo the intro.
I am sure it will get moved soon!

Answer to your question Bring everything that you possibly can. There is more choice in the UK so it may be of benefit to buy there and bring. Furniture places to look at would be
Big save
Harvey Norman
Target
Bedland
Farmers
Compare the prices ans see for yourself what suits your budget

For whiteware and electrical
Noel Leeming
Bond & Bond
Harvey Norman
Farmers
Dick Smith
Heathcote Appliances

Hope that helps

Re: furniture help
 

I would say bring as much as you can, there is not a lot of choice and it can be quite expensive. There is nothing like IKEA here for example.
I have found bookshelves to be the hardest items to find in terms of cost and variety so definitely bring those if you need any.
If your boys really do need new beds then it may be better to scrap them and buy here but research first-Newfies has pretty much covered it:thumbup:
If you have room in the container then bring it!

Re: furniture help
 

Ditto the above - BRING EVERYTHING! :thumbsup:

Re: furniture help
 

hi thanks for that, new to this sight so dont know how to use it properly yet.

Re: furniture help
 

hi sue and tony.
we're in manchester too at mo.
if you're sending all your stuff in containers have you thought about what you will do at the other end?
our dilemma is, do we send container early and go without all our stuff here, or send it when we go but will then have nothing for a good few weeks when we arrive in NZ.
we will probably do the latter, but then are committed in finding a good fully furnished short term rental when we arrive!!
decisions decisions!!

Re: furniture help
 

hi,think we are going to send our furniture last minute as TEG will be finding us somewhere to rent short term and our furniture will have to go into storage for short time. other option is we send our furniture first and have a trip around the world for 8 or so weeks ...... dont think so

Re: furniture help
 

hmmm! that could be plan 'C'... i like it!;)
when are you planning on leaving the UK? and whereabouts are you in Manchester?

Re: furniture help
 

Hi, prestwich, we have to get our passports back to immigration by 19th may so they can be stamped, as yet we dont know if we should see out the school year and go july-august, what about yourselves, what are your plans.

Re: furniture help
 

No WAY! we're in Prestwich too! just off Heywood road.
we're planning on going to NZ in Sept, (a summer here, a summer there, and time to plan, etc..) but Matt has applied for a job which is looking quite promising. if he gets it then we'll have to head out a lot sooner. it will be 3 months notice and then off!!
feel free to PM us, as we're hogging your thread! :)

Re: furniture help
 

There are a few alternative whilst you are waiting for your container and furniture.

There are pleanty of rentals both short and long term that ou can look for to live in whilst you are waiting. There are also companies that you can rent furniture and whiteware from.

Mist people on here also have a selection of things available for you to borrow whilst you are waiting as we all know what i it like to be waiting on your container.

Small world isn't it!

Re: furniture help
 

DTR will rent you pretty much anything you need when you get here.
We were from haslingden just up the road from you lot and our nieghbours
when we got were from heaton park area.
seems like folk cant out of mancunia fast enough.

Re: furniture help
 

yes you cant blame us! Mancunia gets worse by the minute!
we wont even miss Heaton park. although its a good sized park and only 15 mins walk from us, its always full of people at the first whiff of nice weather. too full! and they seem to have a Fair on, for any excuse of a holiday/celebration weekend... which is just noisy, boring, messy and attracts unsavoury people!
cant wait to get on some of those secluded trails in NZ. even in off-season theyre still do-able, and much more pleasant than in UK

Re: furniture help
 

Just a little bit of advice that I have heard! If you buy anything new here it is worth unpacking it, assembling it if you need to then repacking it again as once it gets to NZ and the container is checked anything that is brand new will be taxed!!

Re: furniture help
 

really? we will be buying some new stuff to take with us. so thanks for that!

Re: furniture help
 

we brought some brand new stuff still in the packaging and didn't have a problem at all. The Crown guys even made it up for us :D
When we arrived here neighbours and new friends were amazing at lending us things till our furniture arrived, I've heard a lot of people say this as well.

Pack everything!

Re: furniture help
 

Back on to the new beds thread :) . Its worth noting that if the kids need new beds that the single mattress size here is shorter then the Uk , so any fitted sheets you get here wont fit on the UK mattress. Plus, if u get here the kids wont have anything to sleep on if you're waiting for your container to arrive - got my 2 new beds and a spare double bed and all in came at around 500 quid (may be closer to 600 now due to the crappy exchange rate) -http://www.restbed.co.nz . Whilst we were waiting for our stuff to come I got bits from freecycle (http://groups.freecycle.org/AucklandFreecycle/posts/all), TradeMe (http://www.trademe.co.nz/) and Gumtree (http://auckland.gumtree.co.nz/) . Good luck out there :)

Re: furniture help
 

There are places you can hire furniture/whiteware from whilst you await the arrival of your container. We hired a washing machine from Mr Rental until we had our stuff which, BTW, took 12 weeks to arrive from Manchester, defo on the slow boat from China :p

Re: furniture help
 

Hello, just gonna chip in in you dont mind x

We arrived on 7TH Jan and our container arrived on 19th Feb (3 weeks later than planned), was a bit difficult but we managed. We stayed in a fully furnished rental in Hamilton for the first 3 weeks then moved into our unfurnished rental in Cambridge. we hired our washer/hoover/fridgefreezer/microwave from DTR - lovely chap delivered and collected. mr Rental seems like a bigger company but they were twice the price on everything we wanted to hire than DTR were.
We got our plates/kettle/cutlery/beds/linen/sofa and lots of other small stuff from rentessentials.com - they are based in Cambridge but deliver as far away as Auckland. Again decent stuff and didnt cost the earth.
We brought our kids mattress with us as they were new but planned on buying new beds when we arrived as they were hoping to have their own rooms so wanted different beds (they had matching in the UK). It wasnt till we arrived that we became aware of the mattress size thing.
Over here you can buy single beds, king single (slightly longer), queen (like a double), king and super king (massive lol).
We bought both the boys single beds from Harvey Norman -both quite different in style but decent quality. Both our single mattresses fitted fine - a bit tight on the young ones bed as he has a bunk which frames the mattress (hope you understand what i mean - like a top bunk bed would) but it still fits fine and the sheets that we bought which were sold as single sets were fine - if we have a problem at all its with our king size bed which is too small for the king size sheets we bought - not sure how that happenend :o
If you get on the internet and find any prices for this stuff be aware that those are not what you would pay instore - we got at least 15% off everything we bought there. In total we got a sofa (its purple and fantastic) a rug, freezer, lawn mower (fixed yours yet col :o?) and a couple of bits for the kitchen. The only problem we had was getting the delivery right. It has taken 6 weeks to get the older boys bed - and same again to get the younger ones completed (drawers were damaged) dont be afraid to haggle, tell them what you would like to pay and if you go somewhere else and they would do it cheaper (even if its nopt quite the same) tell em you want it for the same price - worked for us xx

And also, i brought with us a brand new dyson (they are well expensive here) kettle, iron, clothes (am only 5ft and they dont cater for short arses over here) shoes, ironing board, sandwich maker and pans (there was other stuff but im bored of typing now) I took them out of the boxes, tested them and then put them back in again - no one batted an eyelid.

Its not that you cant buy about all of it here - the problem is - when you land, all you do is spend, spend, spend, it gets exhausting and boring (ezpecially if you are dragging kids round) - the OH was nearly at breakdown stage with all the paying out for stuff. At least if you do it before you come out you can spread it a bit - it feels less painfull that way. I wouldn't say that most of what we have had to buy has cost us much more than the Uk would have (except for cutlery -BRING THAT - sooo bloody expensive for knives and forks) but it has meant that now all our stuff has arrived - the wallet can relax a bit x just be aware that NOTHING - NOTHING is cheaper here than the Uk - may be similar but not cheaper x

Am off now, hope this helps you xx

Psycho x

p.s. wouldnt go back to the UK for anything now though - its great x

Re: furniture help
 

Hi again and thank you all for your help.xx

Re: furniture help
 

As Kiwis just returned to CHCH from London after 9 years there. Brought back a 40 ft container with absolutely everything in it, car, the the lot. If you think you may want something and already have it or you can buy it do so. You will not have the same range here and it will probably cost a little more. If you have a car that is less than 5 years old and is European it will probably cost you as much if not more here and if you want a diesel forget it - hence why we brought our car back. If you want oak furniture of the sort you get from the likes of John Lewis or Habitat you can not get it in NZ or Aus for that matter. Also if you want Denby or similar type kitchen ware buy it in the UK at an outlet store or for example good cutlery or kitchen knives etc bring it with you. Also clothing and in particular shoes are much cheaper in UK/Europe than NZ or Aus ( here its all made in China) and should you need a dinner suit they cost a fortune here compared with UK.Tools are cheaper here and the range is as good or better than UK. New UK digital TVs work in NZ and are a lot cheaper in UK.

Re: furniture help
 

No that is not correct. The container will be checked for any items that require inspection MAF ( insects etc) or if it is antique and may have wood worm or cane ware. Otherwise it will go thru as you are new immigrants and you will not be taxed. The container will be delivered straight to you door and unloaded there with and MAF officer in attendance for inspection. Tax (VAT or GST as it here) applies to those NZers returning after less than a minimum period out of NZ

Re: furniture help
 

We're giving this some serious thought at the moment and are torn between going one of two ways. Hopefully we will be selling our little love nest soon and are toying with the idea of a furnished rental for the time being, despatching everything we own and coming out with whatever we could fit in the mahoosive via LA baggage allowance. Not being particularly snobby, the game would then be to trawl TradeMe and all the second hand shops to kit out wherever we ended up using no more than the cost of a container and whatever we could flog our current kit for.

Then there is option "B" - the decidedly less minimalist approach - which involves stripping down everything we own back to flat pack form, stuffing it in a 20ft container with our sofas, 'leccy goods, dive gear, shed contents, garden furniture, anything useful we can cadge and filling every other square inch with flat pack stuff yet to be acquired from Ikea,thus minimalising outlay once we arrive so I can concentrate all my efforts on car shopping.

Really nice to get the helpful tips from you peeps what is already down under - I'd never have thought to stock up on cutlery, so that has been added to our newly formed "things to pre-purchase" list along with socks which were riotously expensive when we visited! :eek:

Re: furniture help
 

Beds with drawers in the base are worth taking as I couldn't find any on my last visit to NZ and they are good space savers.