Bonjour!

As we look at places to rent, we're wondering if it's worth buying some cheap + cheerful furniture at a consignment or second hand place like the Salvation Army (do they even have those in Switzerland?) or just bite the expensive bullet and rent a furnished flat? Anyone have any experiences they wish to share?

Thanks!
Lulu

Emmaus, Caritas, etc. all sell good second-hand stuff (even TVs, etc.)

Tom

I had some luck, and was able to buy some furniture from the previous tenant who was moving out. Otherwise, IKEA seems quite cheap for new furniture.

I think it will work out much cheaper in the long run to rent an unfurnished apartment and buy your stuff new from IKEA, than to rent a furnished place.

hey,
i recently had the same problem as you, but i only had to furnish a room.

managed to do if for free.

I wrote an article about it here though as i thought it might be helpful for people. so i hope it is for you.

http://zurichexpats.com/furnishing-home-budget-zurich/

also i recently found tutti.ch who seem to sell things quite cheaply though

its never going to be as instant as just hiring a van and carting it all back from Ikea but depends what your budget is and for how long you are staying.

hope it helps.

If you find a furnished flat then maybe it's easier...
It's lot of costs to be furnished, along that it's mostly lost if you move abroad...or if it's Ikea... (often break during move in/out)...
(buying, transporting, time to build, etc...).


Otherwise it's definitely better to buy second hand, especially if you're not in a hurry... You can scout the local websites (anibis.ch, etc...), or even buying "abroad" (France, Germany) if you live close to border...(yes you would need to pay a van)...

Yes. There are charity shops. You can get lots of cheap and cheerful furniture there or on the classified ads or from other expats when they leave. And as was said, there is always places like Ikea that have inexpensive furniture.

It is MUCH cheaper this way then to rent furnished.

ETA: Ah well, it seems Cess has removed the information from my brain and wrote his/her article. :P

This is great! Thanks everyone!

Now if only finding an appartment was so easy

Are you moving to Zurich ? I reckon if you got an apartment near Zurich I could fit out an entire household from either Emmaus at Dubendorf or Brocki-Land at Dietikon/Spreitenbach. Even if you don't like an 'eclectic' look - we went for mostly white stuff so it sort of matches

I'd love to do this for a documentary or something, I reckon it would be great fun!

Our household (family of 5) is almost entirely fitted out with second-hand furniture. Some from the forum, some from the brockenhaus.

In Geneva! It doesn't help that we're searching from Canada but something has to come up eventually, right. Right??

Most of our stuff now is second hand! We have the same dishes my mother bought when she was married in 1975. While it is the cheaper option, my house will never fille the pages of a design magazine and I'm totally cool with that!

The nearest Troc shop will be North of lausanne, in Villars St Croix, and there is another in Aigle (after Montreux). Bonne chance. If you go to
www.troc.ch
you can click on the individual shops and see what they've got on sale.

There's a Salvation Army store in Geneva, an Emmaus in Carouge and two others in Plan-les-Ouates. Geneva is a cornucopia of charity shops! She won't need to go that far.

As most people have mentioned... the local broki, caritas, etc. are good places to look. Even cheaper with awesome used furniture was http://www.ricardo.ch I literally came here with nothing and with a baby on the way, we needed pretty much everything and probably 80% of the stuff we got from Ricardo. A few things from the coop/migros ads hanging in the store and the rest from our local Broki Good luck!