A Foreign Dream

Renovate dream cottage. Check. Live in France. Check. Fans of Stephanie Brubaker’s blog, Stephmodo, have been following along as she and her family fix up a lovely house in the French countryside. See how she took that big leap in our latest Dream Big.

Author:
Staff
Updated:
Nov 16, 2018
Original:
Sep 27, 2009

Name
Stephanie

City / State
Salt Lake City, Utah (for now)

What was your big dream?
Sometimes in life we don’t know what our dreams are until we are faced with an opportunity that just “fits”. I felt inspired that France held something in store for my husband and I but I wasn’t exactly sure what it was until we found a little cottage next to a castle that was in dire need of major TLC. It turns out that completing this project and turning the home into something we could be proud of was my “dream”.

How did you accomplish it?
Lots of work…as in 12-16 hour days. But, that is to be expected I suppose. Nothing good comes in life without a lot of hard work, right?

Where did you find inspiration to get started?
Many of our friends took upon themselves renovation projects so it felt manageable. One couple even renovated a little house in France as well. That was the kicker…we knew it could be done. But, since our time frame was much shorter, we had to move at turbo speed and it turns out that the French don’t know what that means. This created quite the predicament as you can imagine but we muddled through with again, lots of hard work and many prayers.

What motivated you to keep going?
Knowing the end product was going to be beautiful and knowing we felt inspired to do this project. The house has such a wonderful feel to it and I know it’s happy to be beautiful again.

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