How does one go about furnishing a house on Bonaire? Are their furniture stores on the island? Are goods from Curacao and Arub 'taxable' imports?

I am looking to buy a house and I'm hesitant to buy one that it unfurnished. Is it difficult to find furniture and have it delivered?

Thanks for any advice

Jenny

Jenny,
I would suggest coming and renting for at least 3 months to get a feel for the neighborhoods and island overall. Although this forum offers a wealth of information, nothing can replace spending some time and learning first hand what you deal with on a day to day basis.

Am I correct in thinking that you haven't been to Bonaire before? It might be worth a visit or 2 before planning the big move. Susan

Hi Susan,

I've been to Bonaire twice. I know for sure that I want to move there. I've lived in a small island community before, and I'm in the suburbs of Florida now and completely miserable. I plan on conducting research on coral reef fish over the course of the next few years.

I'll be there next week to buy a house, so any advice about the difficulty/ease of buying furniture would be greatly appreciated. I want to know how much weight to give houses that are furnished when making my decision.


Thanks for responding,

Jenny

There is a new store, Plantation, loacated in the old Global paint buildint. I understand they have some nice stuff...

Jenny
For you this absolutely a non-issue... just get your "stuff" to Amcar in Miami.... 2 weeks later you have a direct transplant to Bonaire. Many people have done this without any problem.

I'm renting a furnished place here in FL, so I don't have much "stuff" to get shipped. Should I buy furniture in the U.S. and ship it to Bonaire? Will I have to pay import tax?

Or, again, is it easy enough to buy furniture there?

Jenny, you can buy furniture here easily enough. Is it the style you're looking for? Only you can say. Cost might be an issue - I find it expensive for what you get - but it's definitely do-able. If you can get to Curacao then you'll have a better selection and no import duty to Bonaire.

Good luck on your move :-)

Annette

Jenny, Ditto on Annette's comments: you can get about anything you need, but it may not be of the quality or style you're looking for, and I personally think you pay a lot for what you're getting. Plantation does have some nice things, but not cheap. I believe as long as you ship within 6 months of receiving your residency, you ship duty free, but check on that.
Alex

Bring what you can in your one time duty free container, trust me. In my opinion what is available is poor quality in most places. The exception is Plantation that has some nice Antillean antiques and teak. Also Innovato has nice teak furniture. IMHO

Thanks to everyone for the information.

If you buy furniture in Curacao, is it very expensive to have it delivered?

What about office furniture, like desks & bookshelves?

Also scuba gear... should I buy a few tanks here in the states and ship them or are they easily bought on Bonaire? is there a hydro facility on the island?

A little off-subject.... Where do you go clothes shopping? Do you order mostly from the internet? take day trips to other islands? or do most of the locals just walk around in t-shirt shop garments? last time i was on Bonaire there was no Bloomingdales ;) if i go back to the states for a shopping spree & bring the clothes home in my luggage, will i have to pay import tax?

well i bought a house that is mostly unfurnished. the real estate agent said that it's possible to get furniture made on the island by local craftsmen...

anyone know anything about this? what kind of prices am i looking at? how long does custom furniture take?

sorry if i sound totally ignorant, but i am. this is the very first house i have ever owned, and i'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with all of the procedures and paperwork. the last thng i want is to be sleeping on the floor for weeks after i move in.

I'd like to know who makes furniture and what kind of wood they use..

does anyone have any links for websites that deliver home furnishings and linens & things to Bonaire?

Hello Jenny,

Any company in the US can ship to AMCAR Freight and then it is delivered here. I used www.overstock.com and several others to ship to Amcar.

As far as taxing used personal belongings..oh ya, they do this..

Jenny, I used AMCAR Freight and was very happy with their service.

thanks, it looks like AMCAR will betting lots of money from me...

are there any stores in Curacao or Aruba that have webpages? or do you inevitably have to go there to buy stuff from these islands?

No there are no websites for the stores in Bonaire. May I ask how many times you have been here? Apparently you do not understand how small Bonaire is...there are few places with rather basic and sometimes not well made furnishings..or that are bulky pine wood style. Plantation has very nice exotic wood furniture but you pay for this..also the store next to Achie Tours has teak.

I suggest you send what you have personally in your one time allotment. Then see what you need and buy as needed here...Good luck..

Ann,

I have been to Bonaire a few times and I realize how small the island is. I assumed that the stores on Bonaire would not have websites.

I was inquiring about Aruba & Curacao, because they are bigger islands with much larger populations. I thought they might have 'chain stores' or whatever with webpages that deliver to Bonaire. That's what I was asking about.

I don't have anything personally right now, because I rent. I'm moving into my home on Bonaire in the beginning of July and I'm trying to decide whether or not to go on a huge shopping spree in Miami before I leave. My other option would be to buy stuff on Bonaire or one of the other islands, and I'm just trying to gauge how hard this will be.

Jenny,

I would buy in the US (Miami) and have it shipped on Amcar to Bonaire. Going to cost, but at least you will have what you need for sure. City Shoppe on Bonaire has mattresses and boxsprings that are o.k, but not good frames or headboard to my liking, you can buy fridges, stoves on Bonaire too, they are o.k., and small appliances as well. Now, living room furniture is something I would ship to island. That is just me, I needed a new set and tried looking on Bonaire for over a year and could not find anything I liked, then just bought here in the states and shipped. Kitchen table is a hit or miss, but you could possibly get something on island. Depends on your taste. You will need to buy transformers for the fridge ect. and that you can get on island. T.V's are somewhat limited and no bargain on island. You can get them there of course.
There are some furniture stores on Curacao, but I really don't know of any decent ones off hand. The thought of spending time wandering around there trying to find a place and then the airfare back and forth, may be fruitless, so I don't do it. Just me, everyone differs with this I am sure. I don't know the island of Curacao all that well and who is in bussiness today may not be the next and Quality of some of the stuff I saw some folks buy is not what I would buy, so each to their own. Hit or miss with that one. Aruba, well, wouldn't know, haven't been there.

Jenny,
Your one time duty free allotment of furnishing etc (from the States) does not include anything bought in the last 6 months. You will have to show receipts and pay duty on those items and the freight cost to get them here.

You can avoid duty buying in Curacao or Aruba. You just need to pay for shipping.

Thanks to all for the info.


Has anyone been shopping on Aruba?

Yes, I have been shopping in CUR and AUA but the cost to ship and duty was too high...(from AUA).

Let me get this straight...

There is a duty when buying from Aruba, but no duty from Curacao?

Yup. No import duties charged CUR/BON. Aruba is not part of the Netherlands Antilles, therefore purchases from there are subject to import duties here (if you can figure out how to ship Aruba-Bon in the first place).

Guess we will have to pay duty from Curacao when the referendum comes into play.

Susan..Good point regarding Curacao which should take place next year. We're looking at furnishing a 2 bedroom place in 2007 & I was going to purchase furniture on Curacao..However I mise well buy in the U.S. & ship everything to Miami to Amcar if I'm going to have to pay duty one way or the other..At least we can get exactly what we want in the states.

As Jenny stated above, one of the big issue for us was furnishing an entire large house for the first time. We didn't want to buy all the furniture before we moved, because we didn't know yet exactly what we needed and where to put it etc.

So after arriving on Bonaire and looking at the limited offerings and even looking on Curacao and not finding much in the way of what we wanted; we decided to have a local carpenter build our furniture.

We were warned by a number of locals to be cautious. About carpenters disappearing with advancement money, jobs not getting done, estimates being blown through and general bad work. We ended up finding an EXCELLENT carpenter and an EXCELLENT painter/stainer/finisher. Both were very professional and I can recommend them whole-heartedly. Both got the job done to-estimate, done on-time (or even early) and did the job to our satisfaction.

It was nice to sit down with the carpenter and design our own furniture to fit our space and needs.

We have had a number of items built but here are just two examples that I have had the time to take a picture of and crop for the site.






The carpenter: Andy Curie
The finisher: Nino Frans

If anybody else decides to go the Bonaire-made furniture route, feel free to contact me for their phone numbers.

Tim, very nice! I for one, would enjoy seeing photos of the others, if you care to share them with us. It is nice to design and build or have built pieces of your own design, isn't it

Sure Tom,

Here are two other pictures I have handy. A dresser (finished) and nightstand and corner of a very impressive bedframe (unfinished).




It is fun to sit down and design your own pieces. And for us it felt good to know that the money is staying on the island, instead of buying furniture off-island and supporting locals in other countries.

P.S. All the wood is cedar.

Very nice Tim, thanks for sharing! I am so glad that you chose to clear coat vs stain. Preserving and protecting the wood is fine but, covering beautiful wood with stain to make it look like a different species is a sin in my opinion.

Tim, very good looking furniture! I love cedar.

You've got a good eye there Tom. Our initial plan was to have it stained and coated. Our finisher frowned and recommended against it, but said ok. When he came back the next day with two sample pieces of wood (one stained cedar, the other just coated) we knew he was right and went with the clear coat only.

And yet another picture of another wardrobe closet.


And just to recap, it is obviously possible to get nice furniture made on Bonaire, but make sure to get references and it is probably not the ideal solution for people in a hurry to furnish their house all at once. Lucky for us, we aren't in a hurry.

Thanks Tim. I am glad you examined the samples objectively and made the right choice Wonderful wardrobe!!