27 April 2012

Love this :: "The Yard" website

Found this great photo site :: The yard

I spend a great amount of time enjoying all the amazing photos shown there.

Happy Week End to you !


I will share more photos of our own "Eldorado" over the weeke end !

*
*   *









23 April 2012

"Petit a petit, l'oiseau fait son nid"


..."slowly slowly catchy monkey" ?
... a long journey starts with one step? 


Well, in our case our long journey started with one opened, emptied and then flatten to recycle moving box...
A very long serie of boxes ...


Let's take a tour, shall we ? 


Today the downstairs :
our new living area compounds this amazing open kitchen, a dining room and a sort of small version of family room as my US friends will call it 
;)




View from the kitchen to our new dining room

kitchen, slightly boxed in at that time


It is slightly over 3 weeks since we first time we enter this house not as "guest" anymore but as legal owners with a rather impressive key ring set (almost each door has its own key... I will take pictures of some of the funkiest ones we inherited :: some could double as weapon or maybe beer opener ? )







Our first official  and brave  guests two weeks ago
(my dad, saver of this move since he took care of our girls for a whole week
 and our friend Sophie long time lost out of touch)
Behind the scene of the above picture...
And you still can not see the pile of boxes in the other corner

Meet my man :: an lovely hybrid between "Ikea man met Bob the Builder".


piling up tasks : trying to build + fit an ikea inside closet
inside the skin of cool existing closet. Easier said than done.
But the result worked perfectly in the end.
(now everyone has hanging space and shelves according to their age and size!)


Just realized that I wrote Ikea twice... Well, we thought and said that we would never buy anymore Ikea furniture ever... 

Guess where we spent couple "romantic evenings" after movers were gone for the day ? Yep, that's right :: roaming in this aisles looking for very improbable words like TOFTERYD and alike...

For a handmade lover and maker like me : it is a bit awkward, I shall say. But this swedish brand is less than 30 minutes away and quite handy I have to admit.I already check online for better, more sustainable, greener you name it, ways of dealing with our lack of storage. But Ikea it was. Still looking for the perfect  piece here and there(read :: design/second hand/vintage). It is my favorite game ::  the wild goose chase !)

So, finally :: here are more pictures with a  fairly bad quality of light :: taken with my cell phone, on a very grey day (I have been waiting for days to take pictures due to awful weather. 
Well, since it won't clear up for an other week or so. 

Here you go : say Hello blurry pictures with green blue hue indoor lights !

slowly getting there 

picture taken this morning.
Banana, anyone?


more trips to Ikea as a family "outing" (super...)
but we ended up with "the last" version of this sofa no longer in their inventory

From chaos to calm :: finally a couch in the "family space"
(missing some life (plants) & some pictures /artwork on the wall, perhaps...?!)  
This corner is still a work in process.
But you know what : we are so proud that 

we can finally walk around the table while setting it !

Our quick "Easter" theme blend with my favorite Scandinavian Christmas Light from Lundgren & Stranberg. A great gift from our last trip to Stockholm and Uppsala!

So next time, we will walk upstairs to continue the indoor tour. 
Or maybe I will introduce you to our new family members ? 
We shall see..! It all depends on the weather !


02 April 2012

A new place to call HOME.




Since last summer we embarked on a new journey :: finding a new home.
We knew where we were moving to (well, at lead the area!)
We knew the reasons why (work related). But we needed to find a new house to call home.

We visited many, many houses. Some were not a good fit at all (oh the storied I have on some of them !). Some were possibly okay but with some serious elbow grease works. Some were far too remoted (with Peter traveling quite often, not a good idea...).

We found a wonderful on one of the French borders. Gorgeous. Sold within 2 days... Yep, the housing market here in Switzerland is a bit crazy !

Then we found another one, with an amazing view, very contemporary wooden house. Tons of light. The yard was quite small and needed some clever terracing to make it somewhat usable We loved it and made an offer. But things are not meant to be, they just are. Nothing worked as expected. Everything was complicated and delayed. So many highs and lows. Until...

I decided to keep looking (if you know me it is VERY unlike me : I am stubborn french girl..).
To make a long story short : I found what looks like to be a "jewel" online and called the real estate agency right away. House was not quite yet ready to be on the market but I managed to get the first appointment. Love at first sight for this centennial house with a big yard, two spaces for my studios, more storages and what a view!  We met with this lovely family who have been very carefully and lovingly restauring this "chalet" with craftsmanship . Like us they were bicultural. Perfect match.
When things are meant to be... they simply are.

Fast forward many months later with all the paper works required for every possible things (the B permit is a  big thing before being able to get something done) we just moved few days ago as I am typing this.

I don't have many pictures (yet) to show but it will come ! I can simply tell you that the banner is made from one of the old blue print gently given by the previous homeowner.
I thought that my brand name UN LIEU SUR TERRE will be a great match with this picture.

A place on earth, indeed.

Our new place on earth finally called "HOME".