Housing in Israel is very very different to South Africa. Most people live in apartment buildings, and they are not huge apartments either. Even houses are different, most being multi-level with no gardens or very small gardens.
We will be moving into a 2 bedroom apartment. The kids will be getting a bunk bed. We need to sell our King Size extra length bed since there is no way it would fit into an Israeli apartment.
So, this is our ‘Take With’ list:
- All our kitchen stuff, cutlery, crockery, pots, pans etc…
- Washing machine
- Tumble dryer
- Dishwasher!
- Small appliances
- Dining room suite (its an antique that I just had recovered and I love it), includes 8 chairs and a sideboard
- 2 additional side boards (one I use to store my Pesach things and the other is my linen cupboard)
- Lounge table
- Clothes
- Kids toys (2 boxes each)
- All our linen, blankets, duvets, pillows etc…
This is our ‘Not to Take With’ list:
- Our Smeg fridge
- Smeg freezer (we wont have space for a full fridge and a full freezer)
- Lounge suite (Its very big and also needs to be recovered)
- TV (very old)
- TV cabinet
- Bookshelves
- Kids beds
- Our bed and bedside tables
Trying to decide what to take and what not to take is hard, especially since we dont know what our new apartment will look like yet (we are trying to find an apartment as I type).
What would be your MUST take items?
Ah, I’m sorry about your SMEG fridge/freezer!
When I left for Dubai, it was with an infant on the arm, a toddler on the hip, a suitcase full of nappies and a suitcase full of David’s engineering books. We were given a small fridge/freezer as a housewarming gift by David’s boss 2 months after we arrived and otherwise pretty much built up from there.
Bringing it all back to SA was the complicated bit for us, and not too complicated because we just packed it all up and shipped it in a 40ft container…
And the fridge and freezer are only about 2 years old. *sobs*
Have one suggestion from friends. They used the ’empty’ spaces in the lift and filled them with toilet paper and cleaning stuff. Apparently toilet paper is expensive there…
Good plan, Im buying toothpaste, deo, soap etc in bulk and sending it. Also five roses tea! Israelis have no idea about good tea 🙂