Business registration in France: where do we begin…

We are a married couple planning to move to France during the next 3 months. We have been restoring an old farmhouse and barns for the last 3 years in preparation, but there is still about a year’s work to do before we can become active in business terms.

I am a creative designer and fine metalworker from Jewellery to gates and have had a long career at degree level teaching my area of interest, my wife is a languages graduate with a career in Arts Management. I am 63 and she is 55. I am in receipt of a teachers pension. My wife owns a house in the UK which will generate some income.

We plan to use the restored barns as a studio, workshop and foundry to cast bronze. We would like to run courses in casting and fine metalwork skills and work with creative people to help them realise their own creative goals. We also intend to create a range of work to sell in France and across Europe. As a part of some courses we may also offer accommodation.

Our ambition is not to build a big business but to have an interesting life with creative connections but we do need to earn income from this.
Our first question concerns registration, clearly it looks as though we should have different classifications but what is your advice?