Sell your furnishings or ship them over?

Does anyone have an opinion about the wisdom of shipping vs starting over? We have HUGE furniture and I have heard that UK houses are small so it seems crazy to pay the shipping for something that might not fit through the doorways. I would probably sell off the large pieces but what about dishes, books, pots and pans...the smaller things?
It seems like Ikea has just about everything to furnish a home but I dont know if I'm underestimating the cost of starting over! How about charity shops? Thoughts?

I should add that we'd be renting, and I am not too thrilled about renting anything furnished as I am terribly picky about my surroundings 

I'm making the move back to the UK in the next few days and I'm debating what to ship too, although I only have small things and no furniture. I am shipping a small box of books/papers that won't fit in my suitcase, but I can't decide whether the pots and pans will be worth the hassle (my landlady has said I am welcome to leave unwanted things in the apartment for someone else to use). I also have a bike that I'd love to bring back with me, although I haven't sorted out the boxes for shipping it yet because I've been sick all weekend .

Unfortunately I don't have time to sell my things because I am planning to leave by the end of this week (and I also only just made the decision to move 5 days ago).

I don't have a lot that I want to send over, but I got a quote from upakweship.com or something like that... was a site I found on here. I got a generic quote from Portland, Oregon to Sutton-in-Ashfield, nottinghamshire for $1,300 for 100 cubic feet. I haven't gotten to the point where I have everything boxed and know the cubic size of all I want to go with so I don't know about shipping less or more. You might want to check that website or just search for container shipping 

Good luck!

I sold almost all of my things but that's because my husband had already rented a fully-furnished house. Three houses later, we've accumulated enough to make an unfurnished 3 bedroom semi brim full! I can't say how much it's cost us to get all the furniture we needed, but we were able to buy things that suited not only us but the homes we've lived in.

OP - Where will you be living?  And, is someone paying for your move? 

I'd say it depends on how attached you are to your things. I had lots of antiques and other family stuff that was all of great sentimental value to me, so I shipped it all over.

If you decide to sell it all and start from scratch, charity shops can be good, but I prefer auctions and car boot sales. There's no shortage of good second-hand furniture! 

Daisy, we don't know yet where we'll be moving because the company makes the final decision, and yes they pay for it (obviously to a certain amount). Its not so much the money I'm worried about. Its the idea that I'd overpack and be saddled with all kinds of stuff I didn't have room for, or wouldnt need. Then again, I dont want to underpack and end up having to buy everything new. I'm just wondering what other people have experienced and hoping to gain some insight

Ok.  We moved our stuff over and were happy with doing so; we lived in London in a smaller flat than we expected (company package changed to a much smaller rent than we had been told about) so we ended up selling some of our things and giving some away on Freecycle.  If you have something big that  you're attached to and will have storage at home in the States, you might consider leaving it behind so that you won't have to worry about having to get rid of it. 

If your budget is big and/or your in an area that's a little less expensive than some of London, then it may be that you'll have the space for whatever you want.  Things are relatively expensive in London and I'd say in the UK in general if you consider the £ - $ exchange rate, so you won't want to be buying everything new --- unless, again, your budget is nice and big. 

If you happen to be leaving from the NY/NJ area, we have some UK appliances that our movers accidentally packed, by the way.  We're happy to give them a good home BACK in the UK.   

Edit: I just noticed you're in CA.

Is it to find an unfurnished place to rent over here?  We rented 3 different places and we didn't have a choice in the matter. If we wanted the place the furniture in it came with it too!

Going on the experience of an american couple I knew, their company shipped anything they wanted over and back again. They were fortunate to have one of those huge 5 bedroom houses in Surrey though!! For the most part, knowing what american homes contain, I would say unless you are getting one of those huge houses over here, a lot of the items wouldn't fit. But I do like Daisy's suggestion about putting stuff in storage if you can so you will have it when and if you move back! English homes generally are smaller and don't have as much storage space as you will be hard pressed to even find built in closests!!

My contract gives me a full sea container over and back.  When we were househunting, (in London) most of the places were too small for our furniture, and we would have gone the IKEA route.  I had already negotiated with my company to get the shipping savings in cash if we went that route.  (A full 15,000 lb sea container is about $13,000 one way)  The estate agent we used still jokes about our "massive king sized sleigh bed."    We got an apartment that was big enough for our US sized furniture.  We only wound up shipping about 1/3 of a container. 

I also got 5,000 lbs of local storage, and we garage saled the rest.  We still had boxes from when we moved from California in 2001 that were unopened.  We threw out or sold a lot of stuff. 

With all that said, I'm glad I have my own (massive king sized sleigh) bed to sleep in every night.