Hi
We purchased a property in Cherveix-Cubas, and have managed to find a Bricodepo and a little DIY shop near us but we’re struggling to find tiles.
We found a tile specialist but the stock was very limited. So we where hoping for any recommendations, were hoping to find somewhere that sells travatine but at this point just be nice to have the ability to see variety.
Also if any one local can recommend a reliable electrician that would be amazing as we’ve been stood up, ghosted and vanished
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Pavan in Brive have a large showroom and excellent choice. Alternatively Google carrelage and there are lots of tile showrooms in Brive or Perigueux both of which are close to you.
Further afield is Ravel Carrelages http://www.ravelnet.net/, certainly the largest tile merchant I’ve ever come across in France. You can also order online, from what I gather, although for us it just a 40 min drive away.
Always remember that in France delivery is another industry and a very costly one at that, so try and find somewhere you can pick up your own tiles, but you may very well have to order them, as often they only keep stocks of mundane lines.
The same can be said of many aspects of French life.
I often wonder how the French themselves cope - or perhaps they don’t which is, after all, the root of the GJ protests.
It’s hard to pin down or compare averages - per capita GDP is not very different for France ($38,476.66 - source Google) compared with the UK($39,720.44), but the average disposable income per household is a lot lower being £29,400 (= approx 34k €, 2019 data source ONS) in the UK compared with just €20,520 in France (2016 data from INSEE but via “thelocal.fr”).
I can see that higher social charges in France are probably at least in part the reason for the lower disposable income but it puzzles me that the high cost of many things in France is sustainable - especially the high cost of services and any form of work done by tradesmen given that people simply seem to have less “spare cash” available to them.
Anyone have any further insights into quality of life and household economics in France?
Anyway - I’m sure Brexit will address the per capita GDP discrepancy
I think your figures just show how different from reality figures can be. I am neither French nor British and don’t live in France or Britain so perhaps my experiences don’t count but…
My British wife and I have always had a long term plan to retire to Europe and have been trying to decide between of top two destinations, France and England and our third choice Germany which I know from my days in uniform.
Not long ago we spent an interesting couple of days with a French couple we know and British mutual friends. We took the opportunity to ask some specific questions but also picked up a lot through general conversation. Both couples are of a similar age and both live comfortably. What really shocked me was the different position that their children were facing. The French couple have two boys, they have both entered the property market recently, one buying a renovated detached house in the town where they lived, the other a reasonably modern house in the nearby large town. The first paid just under €100,000, the second about €120,000. Both in their thirties this was their first experience of debt. The British family had two children in process of buying their first homes. The elder, with his partner were buying a semi-detached house over an hour’s commute from their work and the other a one bedroom flat close to the family home. The former were paying over £275,000 for theirs, the latter £205,000. This was not their first experience of being in debt one having accrued a significant student debt after 5 years studying at university and the other paying off some substantial credit card debts after a year in NZ. Knowing the children and their circumstances I know which ones are better off financially and which enjoy the better quality of life. France wins hands down both times. As part of my research I checked the cost of keeping a small boat near to the two couples’ homes. The British location would cost almost three times as much. Reality can be a long way from the price of fish.
