Yep - absolutely sold an enormous piece, in order to get my place ready to sell (and achieve that "idea of furnished, though not actually entirely furnished" look).

The two pieces I loved, but didn't have room for, I lent to a dear friend...not a bad idea of you are attached to something, but it doesn't fit into your life plans during certain periods of time/circumstances.

Personally I try to get rid of as much stuff as possible before a move, including furniture if I know it won't fit or I won't be keeping it. Nothing is more irritating than helping a friend move a bunch of furniture they're selling AFTER they move.

You probably wanna sell cheap furniture before you move too. Ikea stuff does NOT move well. Instead of trying to move it yourself and watching it fall apart, sell it to someone else and let THEM watch it fall apart while you enjoy the extra few bucks in your pocket.

Depends on what the "Big Furniture" is.

If it's IKEA or Target (Ugh) there's no reason at all to move it - Just get rid of it and replace with something better later...
...but if it's a quality piece of furniture - You might rethink this:
You'll be lucky to get 50% of retail cost for it when you sell - If you're remaining within the same country, moving it is cheaper than replacing w/ like quality.

Even if you're moving out of the country, you need to decide if you're moving permanently (More than 3 years) or Temporarily (Less than 3 years) If it's a temporary move, you may be better off putting your good furniture and many household goods into cold storage for retrieval when you return.

If you're not sure what your long-term plans are, you can always come back for a visit and dispose of the pieces in storage later.

Then of course there's books and magazines - Are you really going to read them ever again?
Moving is the perfect time to plow through and edit your collections as printed materials are incredibly heavy - Remember that Long Distance movers charge by the pound.

Ehhhhhh, no, I don't think I could get rid of all the big stuff. Before we spent the money on a few quality pieces, it wouldn't have been so much of a problem, but now? It wouldn't make sense. As bepsf said, I'd be lucky to get 50% of retail cost, and that's just not good enough for a $3000 sofa. The $350 sofa sticker in the above photo won't help me buy another piece of quality furniture. We'll move it, or it'll go into storage.

Our blue velvet sofa is the sofa we'll have for the next twenty years - we can't afford for it not to be. I have a piano, which my parents bought me when I was thirteen, to replace the out of tune beast that I had been learning on up to that point, and I still play it. My husband bought me the most beautiful upholstered chair as a wedding gift, and our downstairs neighbour heard me scream the first moment I saw it in our living room. We also have my grandmother's dining set (buffet, china cabinet, table and six chairs). Not to mention a huge, inherited cedar chest with gorgeous inlay on the front. Possibly our mattress too, since it cost a pretty penny, and good night's sleep is without price.

There are many things we could easily get rid of, including the 'big tech,' but the big furniture pieces are with us to stay.

Selling a piece isn't really a "disposable" mentality, though. Whoever buys it is going to use it and probably love it, or maybe even sell it themselves someday.

I mean, I'd feel a bit hypocritical if I felt nice and green for making craigslist finds instead of buying new, and then turn around and scorn the people who are actually selling that furniture. It's still recycling, they're just getting a bit of extra cash for doing so.

I'm with jokerman and some of the previous posters: selling quality pieces of furniture/heirloom pieces or anything that you have attached reasonable value to is not necessarily a good idea. Some of the furniture I have inherited or acquired over the last few years would be more difficult and expensive to replace than storing or moving it.

Wow, nice to see the furniture snobs are alive and well on this thread. I have lent furniture to 'friends', not wanting to sell, with the proviso that they return to me when they tire of it or move or ???. TV stand, side table, two chairs/ottoman, and window a/c unit, all gone never to be seen again. Excuses, sorry forgot, moved in a hurry or nada/nothing. Thanks friends.

If I love it than it is worth keeping and hauling. Having moved many times, I've had too many instances of regret from trying to lighten the load.

For me distance isn't the issue. I moved three blocks last year and ditched a bunch of stuff (read: I dumped almost everything from my college days; time to grow up). If it's worth moving three blocks, it'd be worth moving across the country.

Moving across water is an entirely different venture and should be treated as such.

If you're moving across country, it's not the "bulk", it's the weight. We knew the cost per pound, and evaluated everything: Is it worth paying $___ per pound to keep this? If so, fine, if not, then sell it or give it away.

"nice to see the furniture snobs are alive and well on this thread"

Sorry about what happened to you - but had you paid to put your items in storage, you'd still have them.

And I don't see what's snobbish about keeping & moving quality/expensive items vs replacing inexpensive items - It comes down to basic dollars and cents:

It's not that unreasonable to sell a $400 sofa for $200 and purchasing a new $400 sofa (or better) to replace it rather than spending $200 to move the old one cross-country...
...but selling a $3000 sofa for $1500 to replace it with another $3000 sofa when the cost to move it is still $200 - That's just plain nutty!

I ALWAYS sell larger furniture before a big move. My boyfriend and I moved from Southern California to Houston, Texas and didn't want to take our furniture with us. Luckily we had some friends that were willing to buy it from us for their homes.
Once we got to Houston we bought furniture again, some from IKEA and some from Midcentury Modern antique stores. We also kept our futon frame from West Elm that can be broken down easily so where ever we moved, we just picked up a mattress. Once we got a little more settled in, the futon is now for friends or family who crash at our place.

We made another big move from Texas back to California and again had a friend who was willing to buy our whole IKEA setup and we ended up bringing one of the midcentury chairs back with us.

It's easier on the pocket to sell it, someone else can ALWAYS use it. Plus, it gives you a chance to change styles as you go.

take into account where you are moving though- I got rid of a small couch, dresser, etc when I moved to Hawaii and I realize the cost to replace those items with comparable pieces was more than the cost of shipping them across the country. the choices of furniture are also limited here, most stores wont ship to the islands, and months of scouring craiglist hasn't yielded any great vintage finds (thanks, termites!)

It's all a cost/benefits analysis. The thing is to THINK about the costs and benefits, not just do something mindlessly.

I don't own any multi-thousand dollar furniture, and probably never will -- it's not that important to me. So I would probably think about what pieces (mostly my art collection and other smaller things) that I don't want to part with, no matter what. These get moved.

Then I'd look at the rest and consider whether I could replace it at the new end of things for a reasonable price, either matching or upgrading. I'd consider the space I would have and what would fit and what would not. I'd leave behind, sell or donate, the easy to replace stuff and move the things I love or couldn't affordably replace. I moved from Michigan to New England, and I don't think I actually brought any furniture with me -- I collected it here, a bit at a time, with true junk to start out (a card table for "dining" for a while...) and nicer things as I found them or needed them. It's all what you want or are comfortable with, and can afford.

I will say this about storing things, though. Most of the stuff people put in storage units is what they don't want to live with -- and it's expensive to pay rental month after month on junk. Unless you inherit treasures you don't have immediate room for, but expect to GET room for, better to sell the stuff than to store it.

As we also contemplate a major move, we are thinking of exactly this. We'd be keeping the furniture my father built and the classic dining room set (replacement value upwards of $6,000), but the couch, mattress, bookshelves, all that is getting sold, as well as anumber of possessions.

It's all about gleaning out what you don't want in order to take into your new life only those things which benefit where you are going.

Yes, I'd throw out the couch I loved, but which has moved 7 times now and has sunken seats, worn out springs, and a broken armrest. I'll sell the bookshelves and my desk. I'm keeping my secretary and end tables and TV cabinet knowing full well that the TV cabinet doesn't fit any modern TV (but loving it because it's handmade).

@jokerman - In one case it was a single friend who had been storing a baby's crib for as long as I had known them. They had been single for the many years I had known them, and were still single at the time of the move, with no children. It was not an antique, nor had sentimental value, they were just holding on to it because they wanted to have kids someday and were holding on to it "just in case". They finally realized it was silly to be holding on to it and ended up selling it.

In my case, several times when I have moved and ended up purging my furniture, it not from a "disposable" mentality, but because I was moving into a much smaller place and couldn't afford to store said items. Usually I ended up giving them to friends or donating what I couldn't sell.

I regularly sell furniture when i move, which was often since my husband was active duty military for a while. Yes, even though the military pays to move your stuff, it's still not always worth it.

Not every piece of furniture is going to go great in your new space and you spend so much time trying to make it work instead of enjoying the space. I'd rather sell my furniture before i move and buy new things for the new house.

I know I buy furniture differently than most people though. I shop thrift stores and garage sales for ugly things with good bones and make them pretty. My $15 crappy find that I invest some paint and time in to sells for a lot more when I sell it. So I actually make money selling off my things I don't want AND I get to buy the perfect thing for my new house AND I don't have to worry about a piece being damaged in a move. It's a win win win.

Yes sob sob. I sold everything! I sold my womb chair and my egg chair, my George Nelson dresser before I moved to Argentina. Now I live in a place that has none of this stuff and I can't afford to replace it. The only thing I can do is buy some 50's furniture that folks don't want but it just isn't the same. I love to decorate so it gives me a chance to use my creativity to figure out how to decorate a place that I want to come home to.