Relocating - rent furnished of unfurnished????

[X2mum]

Hi
We are relocating from London to Boca Raton Florida. It's for my husbands business so we are paying for it all. We are going to rent for 1 yr and originally we were going to ship our stuff out but got 3 quotes all around £6,000! Is it worth it? Should we store it and rent furnished or would it feel more homely with our stuff?
Thanks

I can't comment on Florida, but if you are going to pay to store stuff in the UK, doing so for more than a year will mean that you might as well buy it all again.

We ended up renting a furnished place but brought all our stuff over too (not America though, Europe so cheaper) and though it was great for first few days to move straight in, when we set up our own bed and own sofas, it was a big relief and made me feel much more at home. How about just bringing some of it with you? Like personal stuff you are comfortable with - for us it was our bed and sofas that made the difference! I think as long as the furniture isn't old and dirty, then storage items like wardrobes, drawers, table & chairs etc don't matter if they're not yours but certain others things do.....

Your shipping quote sounds about right. I'd bring it all with you. We brought most things to the US two years ago and actually wish we hadn't stored what we didn't bring (namely baby gear, after DC2 came along recently). Also, we don't know if we'll go back to the UK next, so at some point we might end up shipping stuff US-Brussels and UK-Brussels, but the UK-Brussels stuff would be paid for by us and not a company, if that makes sense? However, it is pretty cheap here so you could just rebuy - Ikea is dirt cheap, for example. My only issue now is how long you make do with temporary - when two years become three and then five and so on, we might as well have bought things to last rather than cheap, temporary stuff that becomes permanent. Sorry - waffling a bit - also don't underestimate the hassle of buying stuff. Chances are you'll need a car to get to the stores to buy furniture. And you'll need to rent a car to get to the garages to buy a car and so on... Good luck!

Just check whether humidity might be an issue with any solid wooden furniture. We moved a couple of pieces here to Northern Canada, where the air is really dry. One or two have started to crack. I wouldn't want anything to warp in more humid air.

Great advice thanks