Who will ship me their goods?

August 18, 2006 11:49 AM

Where can I buy medium to inexpensive, trendy furniture and housewares for my new apartment that will ship to Canada?

I have spent an inordinate amount of time searching around for fixin's for my new apartment (returning to school, about $1500 to spend, willing to do some work building custom pieces and finding someone to sew fabrics), however I've been stuck on finding places that will ship to me in Eastern Canada. We don't have an Ikea near, there's a Pier 1 about 150 miles away but I'd rather it come to me. What are my options?

I have a bachelor apartment which will have a shared bedroom/living space/dining room (essentially, I'm using a hanging mesh divider in the room to seperate the bedroom from the living area and would LOVE a japanese style dining room table that would double as a cool coffee table). I'm also looking for a low and long dresser for clothing, a sleek entertainment center for a 20" TV and shelves and decorative type things to make it look good.

posted by dflemingdotorg to home & garden (11 comments total)

CB2, maybe. Their website says they ship almost anywhere.
posted by sugarfish at 11:58 AM on August 18, 2006

It looks like you can order from IKEA and have it delivered to just about anywhere in Canada (I don't know exactly where you live).
posted by jessicak at 12:06 PM on August 18, 2006

Why not use EQ3, which are the big Canadian-local alternative to Ikea? They have lots of stores, and deliver too.
posted by luriete at 12:15 PM on August 18, 2006

I love the stuff at All Modern Furniture, but it looks like they don't ship to Canada.

I would recommend going window shopping there, googling/froogling the manufacturer's item number and see if anyone locally carries it.
posted by willmize at 12:16 PM on August 18, 2006

jessiak is correct. There are no IKEAs in my entire province, but we were able to order from the catalogue and have our baby furniture shipped.
posted by raedyn at 12:56 PM on August 18, 2006

I am also pretty sure IKEA will ship almost anywhere, but their shipping fees can be pretty darn expensive. Do you have any stores along the lines of Target, Walmart, etc? I know you don't have Targets in Canada, but you must have something along those lines. I got a lot of our "starter" furniture inexpensively at stores like those, and some of it was quite nice.

Also, try looking for moving sales in the local newspaper and sign up for your local freecycle.
posted by tastybrains at 2:10 PM on August 18, 2006

(we have plenty of Walmarts, tastybrains)
posted by raedyn at 2:15 PM on August 18, 2006

Have you tried EQ3?
posted by strangelove at 5:10 PM on August 18, 2006

Big vote for EQ3, which I believe does ship cross-country. Very nice sofas and huge selection of upholstery (leather and fabrics). Much better quality thank IKEA, which is nice for things like shelves and housewards, but the quality on the sofas, chairs and tables is not so great. EQ3 stuff is actually made in Manitoba, which is fairly rare these days. Note the US EQ3 stuff also has the same stuff but is made in Mexico.

For ordering from the US, check Crate and Barrell, which will ship smaller items to Canada. They clear customs for you so there's no rude COD/brokerage surprise when it arrives.
posted by drmarcj at 6:02 PM on August 18, 2006

I've just furnished an apartment with about $1500 of catalogue-ordered furniture. Ikea can charge an arm and a leg for shipping, but if you're buying enough stuff all at once, it might be worth it. You'll be putting your stuff together for days, but it can be relatively cheap.

I ended up ordering my stuff from Sears, which will ship huge amounts of stuff anywhere for $50, as far as I can tell. The one thing I will say about Sears is that getting a kitchen table set cheaply from them is not easy if you want to seat more than 4 people. Ikea is good for that (well, they don't sell sets, but you know). I don't know if either store qualifies as trendy, but I think Sears has nice stuff for quite good prices - and I think a lot of it looks better than Ikea's stuff.

I would order a Sears catalogue if you can, or poke around a lot on their site. Try to come up with complete furniture packages from both places, then see what they would cost, including shipping (this will require some time on the phone). Another good thing about Sears is that you can buy all kinds of bedding and appliances from them at the same time and save yourself a hassle.
posted by Dasein at 7:17 PM on August 18, 2006

Green Tea Design in Toronto has your Japanese table, but they may blow your whole budget.

I could not get their site to load, but if it does later, it has a lot of beautiful stuff.
posted by Sallyfur at 11:33 AM on August 19, 2006