Furnishing a property quickly and cheaply - advice needed please

[MovingBack]

We're moving back from abroad soon and renting an unfurnished property. Most of our furniture is staying in our house overseas as it needs to be furnished for letting out there. We're just bringing personal stuff back with us.

So.... we need to furnish our new rental property in England very quickly and as cost effectively as possible. From beds and sofa to kitchen equipment, bedding, towels etc etc.

Please could you give me advice as to where to get this stuff without long delivery times and or where would be best value generally for household stuff? I'm having nightmares about a limbo period with no beds, nothing to sit on, nothing to cook with etc. and I hate shopping at the best of times so the thought of rushing out on a spending frenzy fills me with horror! As does the expense of it all!!!!

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give :-)

Ikea

Ebay is also a great place to pick things up but obviously not so good if you need things the same day

The cheapest cheapest would be a combo of freecycle/feegle, charity shops and donations of unused stuff from friends. SO if you're on the breadline, that's what I'd recommend. But that needs time - time to look, time to collect etc.

Otherwise - Ikea all the way! Go on a quiet weekday morning, and do it in one trip. Might need to hire a van.

As Hazel said, it depends on your budget. If you have a few thousand pounds to spend, you can pop to Ikea and buy it all in one go. It will all add up though, Ikea is reasonable but if you need to furnish a whole house....

Ikea

Ikea

We have a local Oxfam furniture store and a British Heart Foundation one. Can get cheap (and industrially cleaned) furniture there. Good mix of old and modern too, so you don't end up feeling like you live in the Ikea catalogue.

Ikea for beds, drawers, tv units etc. you can do what we did when we moved back from Australia. Contact your local store, tell them what you want, they shop for it £35, load it onto a van and deliver it - another £35. For £70 we had all our stuff delivered on our first full day back in the uk so we slept on beds that first night in our rental (hotel the night before).

I also arranged for a suite from eBay to be delivered first full day back too.

I did other big shops from Australia to be delivered that day from Argos, John Lewis and marks and spencer. I specifically went with online shops that you can select a delivery date.

It took a lot of organising from Australia before we left but we had everything from beds to batteries, cups and plates to a three piece suite delivered to the house we rented on the first full day. A couple of friends came and helped. Blokes did the flat packs, girls unpacked all of the boxes, checked everything, washed the bedding and towels and took a VAST amount of packaging to the tip. It was a great, fun day.

We have big charity warehouses in the wider area around me. You can pick up fantastic bargains with look like new sofas at £75, beds around £50 and tables and chairs for £25 up. They deliver for not much more than price of petrol and its quicker than buying new with lots of turnover

If you don't mind second hand some of the stuff is really nice as so many people appear to change their colour schemes on a whim.

Gumtree can be good, we pick up a lot of stuff from there.

Local auction house.

I've bought a lot and you can get a good deal on nicer furniture than IKEA. Obviously it varies from week to week, but certainly you can get:

Chest of drawers (usually at least 4 each week)
Wardrobes
Table and chairs sets
Sofas (sometimes very good deals, but not always available or what you'd want)

You usually pick up the day after the sale, so max wait of 3 days if you view the day before the sale and leave a commission bid so you don't go over your budget! Book a van for the day after the sale so you can pick up, then, if you don't have any luck you have the van for a big IKEA trip that day instead.

Bedding, towels, rugs etc IKEA

Money saving expert have a search specific to ebay items which say "local pickup only" - meaning you can get some good deals. But obviously this is not for the absolute essentials - just stuff like storage?

I didn't know Ikea provided that service. greggs. What a great time saving idea.

Local charity shops are a great starting point for furniture and you will get a lot for your money. I would probably get bedding from Ikea ditto kitchen stuff - nice quality and reasonable prices.

It is called ikea direct. You have to be on your local store page to see it though.

Thank you so much everyone - some brilliant ideas there! Starting to feel a little less stressed about it all now....