Most useless items taken to NZ

[Glenda]

Was reading a post in "General chat' and Moggie mentioned that the electric lawnmower she brought over from the UK was as 'useful as a chocolate fireguard' due to the amount of land she had.

Got me thinking about the useless stuff we brought over.

1.  Wardrobes - unless you happen to purchase an old villa, most houses have fitted wardrobes - I use ours for storage.
2.  School uniforms - I brought over grey and black trousers, white shirts, white polo neck shorts and a variety of coloured sports shorts.  Duh - nothing has been used.  Some central city schools (and private ones) might use them, though.
3.  Plimsoles, for school - it seems to be bare feet or trainers here.
4.  Coats, woolly hats, scarfs and gloves - not having a ski field or mountains nearby, these lay stored in a suitcase.
5.  Firegrate - we had a purpose-made one, very attractive; some houses have open fires but woodburning stoves are preferable here.
6.  Big pictures and mirrors - the walls can't hold them, and they are not good in earthquake-prone areas.

There are probably more items, but these are the ones that come to mind first.

[kokopeli]

Our container hasn't arrived yet, but our things were in storage for six months before they were shipped out.  The packers rang to say that they couldn't fit everything into the container, so we had to leave some things behind.  A friend collected the various bits and pieces last week and - despite sending our shippers an itemised list - we are expecting to receive:

- A stand for an electric cement mixer.  The mixer was listed as a 'leave behind' and was boxed with the stand, so I don't know how that has happened.  Still, it's bound to come in handy for something.  Not :-?

- Two pine dining chairs from a matching set of four.  The other two and the table are bound to fetch a decent price on E-Bay.....

- Half a bunk bed set.  Sadly, not enough to make one complete bunk.  Maybe we can use it on that woodburner  

The most useless item that we deliberately packed was a full height dog-guard for a VW Sharan/Ford Galaxy.  We used to have one in the Uk and thought we might another one out here.  Except they don't sell them.  I'm sure it will come in handy.

Ahh, you've got to laugh....  :icon_wink: 

Ha ha good thread Glenda,
I've often thought of the useless things we brought over and of course, the useFUL things we didn't!!
My list:

HoodDrier - (for my business)... the stand miraculously disappeared on it's way over and has been rendered useless.

Many boxes of clothes - Still in the garage... in boxes 7 months later!

A ton of display knick knacks, (tasteful mind you!) - Landlords don't allow shelves to be put up...grrr

Small freezer - bought a large fridge-freezer over here, sufficient enough..(resides unhappily in the garage).

I'm sure there are more, you only need to take a quick look at the garage contents to get the picture.

6. ?Big pictures and mirrors - the walls can't hold them, and they are not good in earthquake-prone areas.

Now this is a big problem we'll have. We've collected quite a few items from various countries that are going to be just too heavy to hang on the walls. While we were downunder I did wander around, trying to find at least one or two solid walls, but failed to find even one that would be big enough to hang anything on.

Has anyone found a way to overcome this problem?

Hi Motherbear, there must be a way of getting round this or some sort of reconstruction, picture rails etc. I've got a massive 5ft carved mirror that I shipped over and wouldn't even be allowed to screw it into wall but fortunately, there is a large mantle shelf so I've got it slightly leaning against the wall on top of it.... okay so you need to be 7ft tall to see your face in it but sometimes, you just don't want to see your face do you! ;)
This is part of the reason why I can't wait for us to be able to buy a house some day so we can do what we bloomin well want to do..(even if the wall does cave in ;D :-/

I've got a massive 5ft carved mirror that I shipped over

Ditto Deb.  We've got a similar sized mirror we bought in Qatar.  Looking at it hanging in the shop it appeared the surround was carved out of wood.  It was only when they delivered to our home we found out it was iron or some other metal and weighed an absolute ton.  In fact, it took 3 men to lift it and hang it on the wall.  We just haven't bothered to install it here because we couldn't face going through all that again.  Thought we'd keep it for our home in NZ but there's just no solid wall big enough to hang it on.

Doesn't look too bad in this pic because of the high ceiling but, believe me, it's big and it's HEAVY.  Can't even hang it in the garage as it's tin. I think I'll have a special room built of brick, just so I can hang it again.  Bet there's some people going 'Why bother?'   

[Debd]

Oh I missed this post!
Wow some mirror! It's too nice to leave hey! I love it!
Yes, get that brick wall built for this or if that fails/falls down, you could have a cabinet made to hold it's weight at the right height! Nice room by the way.

[KiwiHopeful]

That is a beautiful mirror--who do you make sit on the couch beneath it, though?

And, if you get a wall built of brick to hold it up, what are you going to make the floor out of in case it does fall?

[MotherBear]

Originally Posted by KiwiHopeful

That is a beautiful mirror--who do you make sit on the couch beneath it, though?

Luckily we don't have this problem at the moment. That photo was taken when we'd just bought the mirror and lived in Qatar. It was such a struggle to put it up that time that we just haven't had the wherewithall to install it here, although there is plenty of wall space. Hubster has been on 1-year renewable contracts so we never know from one year to the next whether we'll be moving on or not, so it didn't seem worth the hassle and the mirror is sadly currently residing inside it's box. Perhaps I could hang it from the ceiling joists in NZ if the walls aren't strong enough?

[selchie]

I suspect that if you could locate a stud behind the sheetrock, you could anchor the mirror quite well. The trick is finding the stud.