In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
You should get plenty of responses - probably split on what is best.
Unless you are totally devoted to furniture you already have, I'd suggest you buy locally.
Personally, I wouldn't ship everything in from the UK [Anyway - you should support your local traders]
When we furnished our holiday home we bought enough of the very basics [bed etc] at one of the Milan Ikeas [90 minutes from the house], and then spent quite some time visiting local shops, deciding on what we needed, and buying what we really wanted.
Its all part of the fun of setting up abroad.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[QUOTE=malvernian]Hi,
I have looked in on this forum a few times in the past, but now have to take the plunge and own up. I am new to 'posting' and I am new to Italy - not to mention Italian. Following a couple of vacations I decided to take the plunge on a property near Ripatransone (for holidays only at the moment) and I have now joined a language course in the UK. My problem is that the property is ready (more or less) and I have yet to procure a single item of furniture etc etc.
In your experiences, would it be simpler to source the essentials in the UK and drive the stuff over or are there places aplenty in the southern Marche for me to source shabby chic?
Sorry if the question seems a little dense, but in my couple of visits to the area nothing really leapt out at me. :o
Thanks
John
PS - Thanks to an earlier thread I have now ordered my 'Antique Markets and Flea Markets Of Italy' (sic) book but think this route will take too long just to get started.[/QUOTE]
Hi and welcome to the forum.
I have just been down this route myself and have more or less finished furnishing my apartment. I too, would have liked to have used second hand Italian furniture, but found that outlets were few and far between and those that I found were far more expensive than in the UK. I guess it is supply and demand. On the whole Italians do not go in for second hand stuff. You can pick up some good bargains via the papers (Portaportese in Rome) and each region will have it's own version. However the drawback to that is that you need to be in Italy and you need to be able to understand the adverts.
In the end I borrowed a van and drove down with my stuff which turned out to be very expensive indeed, taking into account all the travel expenses. It would have been cheaper to have bought in Italy, but having said that, there was a thread the other day offering to share the expense of a van over Easter, and in that case it would probably pay you to source your stuff here.
Providing you have somewhere in the UK to store the pieces as you buy them, until you have everything and are ready to go, and can share the travel expenses, then at least you can buy at leisure, rather than rush round buying things in Italy during a (supposed) holiday.
Good luck with whatever you decide.
Linda
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[url]http://www.mercatinousato.com/[/url]
is one web site that lists second hand furniture shops... for white goods go down to the coastal road and there will be lots of hypermarkets
the thing is they do like to keep thesecond hand shops well hidden .. dont know why ... they are always full of italians whenever we vist our local second hand shop .. so they do sometimes take some finding.. if no luck up there i know for sure there are two in teramo
if you go to the top of the screen and under search type in mercatino there are also several postings that come up... seemingly at least half of them from people in the marche... so you should find quite a bit of local to you info
i am almost totally against furniture buying or products to bring down here if you need to buy stuff... its almost as cheap here.. apart from say flat pack stuff .. but if you add in transport costs and problems with something being broken and getting it back then it just seems easier... and as has been said before you get to know your locality , a few locals ,, and a bit more italian
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Thanks for the input. I think I will probably pick up a few absolute basics in the UK and then take it from there. I certainly take the point about supporting local traders wherever possible. And thanks for the tip about 'mercatino'. I am afraid that even the word is new to me.
John
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[QUOTE=adriatica][url]http://www.mercatinousato.com/[/url]
is one web site that lists second hand furniture shops... [/QUOTE]
This is a great site & really useful. We decided to buy locally but ended up shopping for most of our basics at Ikea (is that 'local'?!?!??!!) as it had plently of simple furniture & didn't require use to embarass ourselves with shoddy Italian.
That was about 3 years ago not & we have found that the Ikea stuff has lasted well (we rent out our house & we were concerned it might not last the distance!) and have supplemented our 'basic' basics with more & more locally sourced antiques/ local things.
I doubt we'd have found these initially & so time has helped....it's also been good fun ;)
I'd also suggest you consider buying a number of tools locally (drills etc...) but bring some decent screw-drivers with you; we've never been satisfied with the local screw-drivers!
.............how's that for parochial advice ;)
Enjoy & good luck
Sorry to reply to own thread - but being a total novice means I forgot to preview before posting. Title was meant to be 'Advice for Total Novice'
:o :o