Furnishing your property abroad

This article is one of a series outlining the experience gained by my partner and I whilst purchasing a property in Spain. They are published to inform others embarking on a similar life changing path. Who knows if the articles are enjoyed and deemed beneficial they might even grow into a book, so please do provide feed back...If we sell enough we might even be able to pay off the mortgage!

Congratulations if you are buying a property abroad! One of the next large expenditures is the interior design of the property. Certainly when we purchased our property we were contacted by interior designers at least 12 months before the completion date. Such companies will supply anything from a knife and fork to a bed.

The first thing you need to do is decide what you are going to use the property for? Is it purely for your own use? Will you allow family and friends to use it? Will you rent it out? How often will the property be used? When you have decided upon the answers you are ready to move on to the next questions. What is your budget to kit out the property? Are you going to design the interior yourself or get someone to do it for you?

An interior design company will offer to install all you need, via a 'furnishing pack'. For a 2 bedroom apartment a pack will range from 6,000 Euros to whatever sum you want to spend. In our opinion avoid the lower priced packages, the goods are too cheap and will probably not last long.

Whilst a company will take the pressure off you, are you happy for someone to design the interior for you? From our perspective we were only too glad to take up such an offer. The pack was installed in one day. However we found a few things which we were not expecting:

1. The bedding was cheaper than we would like, whilst it looks good it will not last long.
2. We could have bought the kitchen items ourselves at the nearest large supermarket, they stock the same, and we probably paid 60% extra for them.
3. The TV installed was a normal style not a flat screen, you would obviously pay extra for one, but we did not ask!

However one the plus side buying via such a company we did not:
1. Have to visit shops,
2. Be there to accept deliveries
3. Put curtain poles and other such items up

Overall it was great just opening the front door post installation and seeing it all clean and new and nicely laid out. The company even emailed us pictures once the job was completed. Would we do the same again? With the experience gained now we would like to design our own interior and do the whole process ourselves. The big question is do you have the time to do so? You can only answer that question yourself

Enjoy your property!