8547 Bring or Buy??

Hi Cath and Mike
What part of Marche are you moving to? I might then be more able to advise re furniture outlets. For now what I would advise is that you buy all household linens in the UK. Are those January sales still going on?. There is another member on the forum who might be able to advise re transportation, he will probably be in touch.
A

Thats interesting Angie - is that one thing you've found thats much better value in the UK?

Cath and Mike depending on where you're going to in Marche I might be interested in chipping in if I can put a box of stuff in your van. I'm not far from you in the Uk and we're not far from Sarnano and Amandola in Italy.
Let me know if you have any space - thanks.
M

Moving furniture is usually expensive. I have done plenty of that. In my opinion, it is only worth considering it if the furniture you own has some value, even a sentimental one. Antiques, family heirlooms are hard or impossible to replace and you are then happy to pay the cost of moving. Ordinary stuff, not in perfect condition.... I would think twice.
Also, what looks great in one home may not suit the other. Try to sketch a layout of the furniture you are considering moving and get an idea of how it would look.
Hard decisions....
Good luck and best wishes, anyway.

The decision on whether to move furniture to Italy or whether to buy locally depends on a balance of costs. If one has to pay someone to move the furniture then fairly obviously that furniture must be valuable either in real or sentimental terms. There are however other considerations.

We travel backwards and forwards in a large(ish) 4x4, which has the same capacity to swallow loads as a large Volvo estate. This means that we can shift (for example) table + 8 chairs, a wardrobe or indeed any load up to 50 cu ft. So there's little additional cost for us over the costs of our usual drive.

People also tend to choose their vehicle depending on their needs, so whereas in the past I enjoyed myself with sports saloons, nowadays I tend to choose utility vehicles that fit the needs of a working farmer. Next time around we're thinking of buying a large van-derived MPV with 4x4. This is because the carrying capacity is important to us and again since the vehicle would normally travel empty from UK to Italy, we will look at what loads we could take in that directions and moving house bit by bit makes a degree of sense.

The other consideration that I haven't seen mentioned is the quality of furniture. Ikea is Ikea and anyone buying furniture of that type/quality would do better to buy closest to the point of use. There are also some specialists outlets in Italy which are IMO of much higher quality than any UK equivalent - Uno Piu is one of them. However I find Italian antiques to be mostly over priced and over restored, often very badly restored. I see better in the UK and also I see better in France on my way to Italy. Such furniture I would buy outside Italy and bring with me.

Hi There, Me and my partner took a luton van load of stuff to Sardinia in Nov - Cost £1250 inc Van Hire, Diesel, Tolls, 2x Ferries etc. Like the other replies you really have to weigh up if it is worth it for yourselves or not, I would guess it would work out at about a £1000 for Le Marche as you would save on the extra ferry but have a bit more in tolls and diesel. In our case we decided to do the trip as my friend is the manager of a furniture store and we got everything for cost plus vat, which paid for the trip three fold and when we had looked around the shops there didnt seem to to be a great deal of choice, Although you should be in a better position for shops being on the mainland.
Do remember it is one hell of a trip and make sure you hire a new or nearly new van and allow extra time for stops, roadworks etc

In general I think the cost of bringing furniture etc from the UK depends on whether you are moving full time or buying a holiday/part time home.
We moved to Abruzzo full time 2 years ago, we moved about 70% of the contents of a 5 bed house, it cost us £5000 from Bristol to Abruzzo this included 6 weeks storage in Bristol.
If you are living in Italy for short periods then it may pay to buy most of your stuff here, also bear in mind that it is not the same here as far as s/h shops as in the UK so most of the furniture you need will have to be bought new. I can’t comment on Ikea but a reasonable bedroom layout will cost about E3000, then you have dining furniture plus electrical goods plus any little bits to make you feel at home.
A full time move to Italy (IMHO) is as much about the other little bits, pictures, crockery, kitchen utensils etc not to forget your diy and gardening tools/furniture.
If you are a keen diyer just imagine the cost of replacing all those tools and little bits you feel comfortable with at home, plus that easy to use spade and fork etc.
I believe it would have cost us at least E20,000 to replace what we would have left behind not including the comfort factor of having old friends with you.
Having said that if you want a complete change then just come in the clothes you are wearing, you may feel a bit cold at the moment though.

Stribs

My husband and his two friends thought it would be a hoot to take a van load of furniture to Sardinia 14 months ago and although it was a lot of driving, they had a "boys adventure" and I didn't haven't to spend the precious time that we have in our wonderful Sardinian village traipsing around the shops and sitting in waiting for deliveries ( that may or may not arrive on the date advised, this is Italy after all!) , the trip cost £1500 which included food, hotel stopovers, ferry (at top rate as it was not prebooked) diesel and luton type van hire. It may not be the most convenient solution for the time conscious, but it worked well for us.

Morning Marina

I bought the linen in England in the sales, probably 50% discount, pure cotton ,(all that awful ironing!) but what I felt we needed for the guests in the apartment. Also most of the towels. Stuff out here has been poorer quality, or wonderful stuff that I cannot afford. Have bought towels in Ikea which are fine, but guess if I has access to the January sales in England I would stock up again. Also duvets in the sales in England were a bargain, very expensive to buy here.
Bye from the mist ridden hills of Marche (cannot see a thing, very spooky)
Angie

We are thinking along the same lines. Quotes are expensive for removals & with the Euro so bad, it is a lot cheaper to buy goods here. I bought a brand new boxed kitchen over here for 1/5th the price of italy and that was before the rate on currency got this bad. Our thinking is that buying a transit we can leave it in Italy (Abruzzo) for a few months (fly back).. This then gives us a vehicle when we fly out again in between (no car hire) then drive it back after a few months and sell it when back in the UK hopefully re couping majority of what we paid for it? Also only one long journey with a bit of a break before we have to do it again? Yup....Decisions, decisions!!!
:bigergrin:

I moved from a large, 2-bed flat, with pretty much everything, apart from electrical goods. I had a packing service come in on the day, and shared a trans-european truck with a few other loads. Unable to deliver to the door here, since the streets are too narrow, we hired a transit van, and moved 2 van loads from the truck to the house. Had a few problems on the way, but the cost to me, after they HAD to refund me some money, was about £1600. No storage involved. I agree with some of the others, if you are moving out here permanently, then it's worth bringing your stuff with you. For me, there was no choice anyway, since I have no property now in the UK. I find furniture and housewares to be very expensive here, and if you can, bring it with you! I bought 2 duvet covers in in the UK, 300 thread count, and absolutely beautiful - cost? £45 the pair. I've seen them here for £155! The conents of my (vast!) tool box alone would be extortionate here, plus all the little bits and pieces that are impossible to explain to someone else, if you want to buy them! Do your homework, see what is cheaper in what place, and weigh up what you can afford to bring with you. It's not easy...good luck!

Another option is to buy new furniture in Italy and transport to your location even if this is some distance away.
Obviously this depends on the type of furniture you are after but I have found a designer brand / outlet in the north (Bolzano) and am considering van hire to transport to Le Marche. Up until the sterling dive of the past weeks the euro price was 2/3 the sterling equivalent. Sales promotions are an added opportunity. I also compared the prices in several mainland European countries concluding that there was a significant premium in the UK.

Based on earlier advice it appears there is a wide range of pricing but if you like a particular brand then google for outlets.

I'd be interested in knowing of any outlets for furniture as we will be furnishing our farmhouse in the marche. I've almost persuaded my husband that we need to drive a van out from the Uk with stuff that is better in the Uk (or which we already have & don't need here - eg baby/toddler equipment). Any suggestions (esp with an indication of the style & price) would be much appreciated.

Chris

If you decide to employ a removals firm and you live up a steep/narrow lane make sure they fully understand the situation so that you are not faced with a bill for you to employ an Italian with van to shunt your stuff to yr house. It has happened and it is not easy to arrange if you're in the UK.

[quote=elliven;81190]If you decide to employ a removals firm and you live up a steep/narrow lane make sure they fully understand the situation so that you are not faced with a bill for you to employ an Italian with van to shunt your stuff to yr house. It has happened and it is not easy to arrange if you're in the UK.[/quote]

With a 'proper' removal firm this particular snag shouldn't arise. They all have gps, google maps, and access to information about exactly how impossible 'your' location is to access with a pantechnicon, (and our experience is almost twenty years old...but, it was Pickfords). The funniest thing was (that long time ago) they were actually cheaper than the 'man with a van'!

Not our experience I am afraid Charles!. We moved out with an international company, had advised our road was steep but passable with a large van. The idea was that they would hire locally ,offload to smaller vehicle and we would be reunited with all our worldy goods.

Not so, the company had "forgotten" they were to do this, and the poor deliverers, had to drive to Ancona airport a round trip of 3hrs, off load there to a hire van and return to us.

They did this 3 times, I felt so sorry for them, they were Polish workers ,paid a minimum wage and were exploted, by this company. We complained bitterly but to no avail, cost us a fortune in phone calls, the workers must have been way above their legal driving limit, and from us they were contracted to go up to Venice.

We thought we had covered all eventualities, but human error, incompetence won out.
A
A

I would bring out your furniture. You did not say whether you would like to buy new or second hand furniture when you come out. Good quality furniture here costs a fortune whether it is old or new. Second hand furniture at reasonable prices is extremely difficult to find.
I have been here 4 years and good second hand furniture can only be bought through word of mouth and with a bit of luck. As soon as your foreign accent is heard at the markets, prices will shoot up. If your carpentry skills are ok (or you are willing to learn) then you will be able to find bits and bobs.
I don't know any cheap removal companies, but someone I know recently used Romans of Camberley after having done a lot of research.
Jo
[url=http://www.southernlemarche.com]LE MARCHE[/url]

[quote=Charles Phillips;81194]With a 'proper' removal firm this particular snag shouldn't arise. They all have gps, google maps, and access to information about exactly how impossible 'your' location is to access with a pantechnicon, (and our experience is almost twenty years old...but, it was Pickfords). The funniest thing was (that long time ago) they were actually cheaper than the 'man with a van'![/quote]

I moved to France about 15 years ago. Got a quote from an international moving company having told them that I was moving near to the top of a mountain, narrow winding roads and three low bridges. They quoted to Grenoble and said there would be an additional unspecified cost to take my contents from Grenoble up to St Pierre Chartreuse. They could not / would not tell me how much that cost would be, said it would be determined after the job was done. An open ended cheque - no thanks. Needless to say went with another firm, Bishops Move, who quoted for the entire job and were magnificent!

So when we moved to Puglia, we got three quotes, one from Bishops Move, one from Pickfords and one from someone else who I can't remember. The Pickfords basic quote was 50% more than the Bishops Move one. We asked both companies to quote separately for moving hot tub and summer house as we wanted to base decision on moving them on cost of removal. Bishops Move charged us an extra £600 for the two big items, Pickfords quoted an additional £6000! Guess who we went with.:laughs:

[quote=jowilliams;84374]I would bring out your furniture. You did not say whether you would like to buy new or second hand furniture when you come out. Good quality furniture here costs a fortune whether it is old or new. Second hand furniture at reasonable prices is extremely difficult to find.
I have been here 4 years and good second hand furniture can only be bought through word of mouth and with a bit of luck. As soon as your foreign accent is heard at the markets, prices will shoot up. If your carpentry skills are ok (or you are willing to learn) then you will be able to find bits and bobs.
I don't know any cheap removal companies, but someone I know recently used Romans of Camberley after having done a lot of research.
Jo
[url=http://www.southernlemarche.com]LE MARCHE[/url][/quote]
It wasn't a hard decision for us as we sold our house in UK so if we didn't bring our furniture we would have to sell it off. Most was relatively new and relatively good quality, but second hand prices would have been a joke! There was also sentimental value to a lot of things. So lock stock and barrel it all came with us (barring the kitchen as it was fitted - shame though we had only put it in new a couple of years before).

We arrived 10 days before our furniture, to a cold, dirty house with a few bits of furniture left by previous owner. The night of our first arrival I really thought we had made a mistake .... everything was so awful. No choice but to knuckle down and get on with it. However when our furniture arrived 10 days later (having been cleaning and painting in the interim), suddenly the house came alive and felt like home again. And as a plus, the two cats we had brought from UK with us, settled down as soon as they had their favourite sofas / beds etc to sleep on.

It's a personal decision but if you are relocating rather than setting up a holiday home, it's probably worth bringing your furniture with you.

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

Initially we used an Oxford based firm (9 years ago and 4 years ago) to move a great deal of furniture to Italy. Excellent service but fairly costly. Then we searched Italy Magazine small ads and found a gem of a couple who have, we think, now retired. We feel it is worth getting a quote from other removal firms advertising in Italy mag (ask for references too) as some may not charge VAT. Brighton friends were extremely pleased with a firm based at Kings Cross London [url=http://www.args.co.uk]Italy Removals, Relocation, Removal, Moving, Relocating to Italy[/url] Their prices are very competitive too. Note these friends have a white road and hardly any turning circle!!!! If you are moving to Umbria it's worth bringing furniture that will fit into your Italian house, you can always paint it!