Below you will find a selection of the most recent entries from bloggers in the Your Home section.
To view the entries from individual bloggers, click on the links below:
Anna Lascols, Organizing Geneva
Her mission as a professional organizer is to improve people’s lives by coaching them how to set up and maintain efficient systems to keep their time and space in order. Anna helps her clients to visualize their ideal lifestyle and works side-by-side with tem to reach their goals. These can range from redesigning their closet à la Marie Kondo to getting their paperwork under control, improving their time management skills or preparing for the arrival of a baby. Anna is a KonMari Consultant and a member of the Swiss Association of Professional Organizers (Swiss-APO). She works in and around Geneva and provides her services is English, French, German and Spanish. She offers personal organizing sessions, virtual coaching and organizes workshops on various organizing and zero waste topics.
Liz Forest - EMF Management
Liz Forest is the founder and owner of EMF Management, a Swiss-registered renovation project management company servicing the international community in the greater Lake Geneva / Vaud region. EMF handles the heavy lifting so clients do not have to learn a new trade, take time off work, or sacrifice family holidays or their sanity just to make their house a home.
Virginie Dor - Space of Mine
As founder of Space of Mine, a professional business specializing in residential organizing, Virginie Dor is committed to helping individuals and families better their lives, take control of their surroundings and time by creating organizing solutions that are individually tailored to each client. As a proud member of NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers), she is an expert in clutter control, work flow, space planning and time management.
Tara Lissner - Swiss Gardening School
An enthusiastic, self-taught gardener, Tara Lissner is passionate about gardening and eager to share her zeal and knowledge with other gardening fans. In 2012, she joined forces with Hester Macdonald, a British-trained landscape designer, to launch the Swiss Gardening School.
Aislinn Delmotte - Settling Here
Aislinn Delmotte runs Settling Here, a company which aims to provide practical help and advice to individuals, couples and families relocating to the Pays de Gex, a region where some of the customs are similar to those in neighbouring Switzerland, but where many aspects of living are entirely different.
Sophia Kelly - Sophia Kelly Home Design
Responding to the growing demand for home design services in the international community, Sophia Kelly provides a range of tailor-made services, which are perfect for clients who have just moved into a new home or who simply need help reorganizing one that they have lived in for many years!
With the discussions on a Brexit deal still on going and up in the air, many British passport holders resident in neighbouring France are speedily trying to exchange UK drivers licences and applying for French residency and the carte de séjour. How might the deal affect British citizens who have recently relocated to France or have been in France a very long time? Well, truthfully nobody knows yet. Hence why some have decided to start the administrative task of preparing for a worst case scenario and applying for various bits of French paperwork.
The drivers licence exchange between EU members states is relatively straightforward and if you are currently driving on a valid UK EU licence then you can swop it for a French EU licence. In fact, there is no obligation to do so unless you have committed a driving offense or your current EU licence is due to expire. However, to safeguard their EU driving licence and to avoid any possibility of having to sit and pass a French driving test (not an easy option), many British licence holders have now swopped their UK licence for a French one. The process can take a few months as all applicants in France (except Paris) go through the CERT EPE-PCI office in Nantes. It’s a postal application without a fee so it is essentially free-of-charge but requires passport photos, copies of various documents and two Cerfa forms to be completed. Applicants must also have been resident for at least 185 days in France at the time of the application.
A surge in demands for French residency permits has been noticed; you may hear these permits being referred to as Carte de Séjour (CdS), a physical card which hasn’t been required by passport holders of EU member states thanks to the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, and the subsequent EU directives which followed that Treaty. I personally remember going into the Préfecture in Lyon in 2000 to apply for my CdS as an EU citizen, but when I returned to France in 2010 I no longer needed one as I had the same rights to work and live as any French citizen in France, all of us being EU citizens.
British passport holders are now asking themselves, “Should I go get myself a CdS, especially if I will no longer be an EU citizen post Brexit?” Many are doing exactly that, especially those who have established their homes in France, have bought property, intend to retire in France and have children who have only ever lived in France! A point to note is: Right of permanent residence: Union citizens acquire this right after a five-year period of uninterrupted legal residence, provided that an expulsion decision has not been enforced against them. This right is no longer subject to any conditions. The same rule applies to family members who are not nationals of a Member State and who have lived with a Union citizen for five years. The right of permanent residence is lost only in the event of more than two successive years’ absence from the host Member State.+
Applications for residency should be made through the local préfectures in France.
For personal assistance with any of these matters please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The information in this blog post was up-to-date at the time of publishing 10 October 2018.
+ reference: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/en/sheet/147/free-movement-of-persons
Bio
Aislinn Delmotte runs Settling Here, a company which aims to provide practical help and advice to individuals, couples and families relocating to or indeed already living in the Pays de Gex, a region where some of the customs are similar to those in neighbouring Switzerland, but where many aspects of living are entirely different.
Settling Here aims to bridge the gap between France and Switzerland and provide information which is specific not only to France but to the Pays de Gex region too. Settling Here provides individual assistance to clients and runs regular information sessions, bringing along regional experts to discuss certain topics which include, for example: taxes, house purchase and selling, health care in France, driving laws: job hunting in Switzerland and cross-border issues.
Settling Here
www.settlinghere.com
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+33 (0)673369656
By Virginie Dor, Space of Mine - Home Organizers
Getting ready for the holidays? There’s no better way to enjoy your vacation than to know you won’t be coming back to a messy home. Here are few of my favourite quick fixes:
Bedroom:
- Use under-bed systems such as roll-out bins and vacuum seal bags to store off-season clothing or extra linen.
- If you’re short on storage space, do away with nightstands and use bookshelves to frame your bed. Or a low shelf at the foot of your bed.
- Room dividers using shelving units or tall cabinets not only help create extra storage space, but improve zoning in small spaces.
- Keep your cords and chargers under control by re-using twist ties, washy tape and shoe boxes to hide extension cords. Don’t forget to label them.
Photo credit: Gabrielle Ward
By Liz Forest, EMF Management
I recently read in a local expat group on Facebook a post by someone looking for a recommendation for an “honest carpenter”.
It turns out the person writing the post was actually looking for someone to install a custom wardrobe in their home. What ensued was a short explanation of the job (i.e., some shelves, a hanging bar, and a sliding door to hide it all) and the fact that the person had already received offers from two carpenters “for the same amount”. The person was clearly in search of a third offer significantly below this threshold. I read this to imply that both carpenters might be perpetrating highway robbery as the job was too simple for anyone to be paid such an exorbitant amount (NB: embellishment is my own).
These kind of posts are rife on FB. To be completely honest (in the spirit of the sought-after carpenter), they evoke in me a tiny bit of sadness followed in quick succession by incredulousness and a fair amount of frustration. Why?
Well first, as I run renovation projects for a living, I would normally be able to reply to such a FB post with the names of at least two or three truly honest carpenters with whom I have collaborated in the past and who do magnificent work.
Next, before replying, I have to ask myself if the writer means:
- Honest = can be trusted when left alone in your home with your stuff
- Honest = does not lie
- Honest = does not cheat
- Honest = performs the task as requested
- Honest = does not try to take more of my money than I believe they are entitled to take for the job I want and need them to do
By Tara Lissner, Swiss Gardening School
Wow! What a few weeks it has been. Gloriously warm temperatures, big blue skies, t-shirts and sun hats, winter a lifetime away – spring has really arrived, even though it feels like it could be summer. In Switzerland it this year it has been the warmest April for years and years, lucky us no? Or, perhaps not.
I’ve been having an amusing conversation with an Australian friend at the moment, I recently lamented that last weekend was just too hot for gardening (for me that is) and she just laughed and laughed, heat, she suggested, is what it feels like in the Australian desert! It is what we are used to I suppose but for me gardening a few weeks after Easter in 25c is just a little dramatic. I’d much rather a gentle increase in temperatures and enough time for me to acclimatize to the change in the weather. If nothing else this dramatic jump in “heat” leads me to think about the plants. There is a great gardening rule which is “right plant, right place” which means that every plant is a great plant so long as it is placed in its ideal spot, shade for shade loving, sunny for sun loving etc. Baking on my south-facing terrace this week has led me to think that I will give up on the lovely arrangement of cute little pots I’ve had there for the winter and only keep a few of the big ones. I promise to only plant heat tolerant, sun-loving beauties and shall retire the delicate plants and pretty small pots to the shed (sorry, cave) for the summer.
By Liz Forest, EMF Management
Renovating can be a stressful and challenging proposition, especially when you are going it alone. Don’t have the time, know-how or speak French fluently? Already have a vision for your ideal space but need someone skilled to make it a reality? If you are considering working with someone to plan or manage all or part of your renovation project, here’s a list of what you should expect from any good project manager (PM):
- First and most importantly, it is not all about them! Beware if during your initial meeting you hear nothing but “I”—as in “I would definitely…”; “I despise …”; “I strongly suggest…”; or “I can’t live without….”. Ditto for shameless namedropping or strong or otherwise intimidating statements about fashion, trends, colours, style—unless of course you ask!
- They prioritize your taste and needs. A truly talented PM is able to guide you in making well-informed decisions and putting aside their own lifestyle and decorating choices to help translate yours into an implementable vision for the project. However, if you have seen and fell in love with their home or office, don’t hesitate to say you want it cloned!
- They have excellent communication skills. Without a doubt, these include active listening; regular, precise written communications; and fluency in at least English and French. They should also be able to clearly interact in person, by phone or email with you and all service providers on the job.
