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!
Photo courtesy of vitasamb2001, www.freedigitalphotos.net
By Gillian Brotherwood, co-founder of Settling Here
Historically, all people had to take medical insurance in the country in which they were employed. However in 2002, a bilateral agreement between the European Union and Switzerland, gave Frontaliers the right to choose which national healthcare system they wished to take and pay into. France, under pressure from Frontaliers, accepted to allow Frontaliers to choose between the French healthcare system, the CMU, or take out a private health insurance. The decision was given initially for a 7 year timeframe. This was extended by a year in 2009 and then again until June 2014.
The majority of Frontaliers (95%) choose the private healthcare option, this is for a variety of reasons, including cost, choice, and availability of services. Private Frontalier healthcare insurance contracts offer a variety of options for people, allowing individuals to choose cover depending on their budget and health care requirements.
If you are buying a new home on or off plan, planning to make changes to your current home or thinking about moving, it is important to follow a series of planned steps to make sure the project will run smoothly and avoid costly mistakes.
Here are some planning steps for your spaces or rooms, which I covered in my recent workshop, entitled Planning your Home Project:
• Start off by understanding why you are making the changes and what realistic time scale & budget you have.
• Make sure you have architectural plan drawings or prepare your own ones by surveying each space.
• Undertake a space analysis – what are the existing ceilings like, walls, architectural details, fireplace, windows, flooring, natural light, exterior? This will help form a true understanding of the space/room and assist in creating accurate design concepts.
• Consider if you should make changes to your floor plans – forget the conventions of sleeping upstairs and living/eating downstairs – aim for flexible planning.
To help home owners learn some of the basic rules about interior design, I run a series of workshops on different themes that are carefully chosen to give clients the confidence they need to make their own decisions about personal projects within their home.
This month’s workshop kicked off with the Theory of Colour and how we can use this to create interior colour schemes.
Here are some of the key points our attendees took away with them:
