Living In France | A French Collection

Essential Elements of French Country Cottage Style Decorating

Decorating your home in a French country cottage style is very popular and while there are essential elements to achieving this style there is also plenty of scope to customise and personalise your home in the look of a French country cottage style.

French Country Cottage Style Decorating is Easy

Before we look at the essential elements of this style, let’s consider what the mountain chalets of Alsace, country homes of Normandy, coastal apartments of Cote d’Azur and family chateaux throughout France all have in common?

Well, they’re all someone’s home where they live, love, entertain and maybe work from, just the same as your home and mine. We fill our homes with the necessary, the precious and the sentimental to create our very own living space. Creating a home, even if following a particular style, should always be about what feels you with joy and works for your family’s needs. (Read more about my home in France)

Annette Charlton

Annette lives with her family between their homes in France and Australia. She’s been featured in International magazines including French Property News, on ABC National Radio, numerous blogs and travel websites. You can connect on Instagram or Facebook.

www.afrenchcollection.com

The Day I Became A True French Villager

What makes you a feel like a local or a real citizen of your town, village or suburb? For me I felt like a tourist in our second home in France, rather than a real homeowner and local, for nearly five years and it was the smallest event that suddenly made me feel like I belonged.

The Day I Became A True French Villager

Being an expat can fill your daily life with wonder and amazement and also consternation as you try and figure out how everything works around you in your foreign environment or new country.

For some people fitting in seamlessly and appearing to have always belonged to their new life looks easy and for others it takes time and the inevitable faux pas and awkward moments before a sense of belonging is enjoyed. The aha moment of belonging caught me unaware and it was the simplest of things that caused it.

French Village Life & Making New Friends

This story called 'One Good Turn Deserves Another' is the next instalment in our French Life Series. It's all about making friends and helping each other.

One Good Turn Deserves Another

We live part time in a little village that's nestled amongst maize fields and grazing cows and this stay at our French house Paul (my husband for any new readers) got sick and to be honest it was driving me crazy. Normally, I am quite a kind and understanding person but in these circumstances I was a bit short of empathy and well, a wee bit cranky.

A New Beautiful French Subscription Box

Coming in 2020 - A New French Subscription Box

Woohoo! I am so excited to share something new and special just for you, and coming in 2020. I know you'll love it! Coming around mid 2020 we will be offering a deluxe French subscription box called, My Beautiful French Collection Box.

The name says it all - a collection of beautiful French products in a box. And best of all, it gets delivered to you automatically once you've subscribed. For those of you who don't know what a subscription box is, it's an easy way of receiving, directly to your doorstep (or PO box of course), things that you love the most on a regular basis.

The Best Paris Surprises Ever – Confessions of a Paris Tour Guide

Treize Bakery Paris, rue de Medicis, Paris

The Best Paris Surprises Ever - Confessions of a Paris Tour Guide

Paris is alluring, stylish, artistic, beautiful and deservedly one of the most visited places on the planet but if you were to ask me what I love most about this city that I've visited more times than I can count, my answer would be ... the French people and the wonderful little exchanges or moments that I've experienced with them.

Maybe I should be espousing the glamour of Napoleon III's apartments in the Louvre or the stunning fragrant roses in the Jardin Palais Royal that I've shared with my tour guests in the past, but honestly for me it's the more simple things.

Paris Packing Guide – Essential Tips For The Perfect Wardrobe

Paris Packing Guide - Our Essential Tips

This essential guide to packing for a trip to Paris, or anywhere in France, comes from my experience of over 19 trips to France and even more trips to numerous international countries either alone, with my husband or with our three children in tow.

In addition to our international travel, our family has explored my home country of Australia, from the hot northern tip of Darwin, the cold southern oceans when yacht racing in Tasmania, trekking in the red centre and much city and coast adventuring along the continent's vast east and west coasts.

Parisian Drivers – Is There A Secret To Driving In Paris

Parisian Drivers - Is There A Secret to Driving In Paris?

Have you noticed how often you hear car horns honking when walking the streets of Paris? It is a sound that is synonymous with any busy global city, but Parisian drivers seem to make more noise pressing their car horns than many other cities I've spent time in (well, maybe on par with New York and Shanghai). However, Paris is the city of light and romance so shouldn't it be quieter!

Our French Life and The French Resistance in Cotes d’ Armor

WWII and The French Resistance in Côtes d’Armor, Brittany

Our first trip to our new French village holiday house was only days after settlement of the property had been completed and we had planned a full and varied holiday of purchasing furniture, meeting our neighbours, sightseeing and generally enjoying being in our new French holiday home and fitting it out.

We decided to fly from Australia to Frankfurt, Germany and then make our way to the house in the region of Côtes d’Armor, Brittany sightseeing along the way.

« Previous Page

Essential Elements of French Country Cottage Style Decorating

French Country Cottage Style Decorating is Easy

The Day I Became A True French Villager

The Day I Became A True French Villager

French Village Life & Making New Friends

One Good Turn Deserves Another

A New Beautiful French Subscription Box

Coming in 2020 - A New French Subscription Box

The Best Paris Surprises Ever – Confessions of a Paris Tour Guide

The Best Paris Surprises Ever - Confessions of a Paris Tour Guide

Paris Packing Guide – Essential Tips For The Perfect Wardrobe

Paris Packing Guide - Our Essential Tips

Parisian Drivers – Is There A Secret To Driving In Paris

Parisian Drivers - Is There A Secret to Driving In Paris?

Our French Life and The French Resistance in Cotes d’ Armor

WWII and The French Resistance in Côtes d’Armor, Brittany

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