In 2023, Sophie Hilaire Goldie, 37, and Rocky Goldie, 50, have just finished a friend's Home Depot shed and are ready to start finding their own place together.

"I might have been stuck in a small shed if it weren't for meeting her," Rocky told CNBC. "I've walked a long way, but when we met, I wanted to be some type of homestead. She had the same vision, and it wasn't common for meeting someone."

"He also wanted to live on land and homesteads," Sophie added. "But he doesn't have the grand vision of all these buildings. He just wants something simple."

The couple began searching on Zillow, which included "at least 10 acres of land" and is located in rural Kentucky.

"We love old things and antiques, so we want a place that has some history. We're actually looking for a fixture with some history, and we're not really finding something great on Zillow," Sophie said.

A local photographer linked the couple to the real estate agents and they found them to be a 37.5-acre homestead for about $390,000. The property has two wooden knots with 1840s cabins that have been merged into the construction of a 2200 square foot home – with four bedrooms and a bathroom – as well as a 200 square foot cabin and two barns.

"I think I've been waiting for my life to finally get home. The elements of the shed feel like that, but this place, feels right than anything else. I know this will be my last move, where I'm going to spend the rest of my life," Sophie said. "I know I want to put so much energy into these surrounding lands. Finding a home in Rocky, this home feels like I can finally let go of the burden of finding a place I've been looking for."

When the couple first visited the property, the shape was very bad. There are poison ivy in the front yard, cracks on the sidewalk, and garbage everywhere.

But Sophie felt optimistic. "I know we're going to buy this house before stepping into it," she said. "I saw all the promises. My husband and I worked full time and in a few years we can change the place."

She added: "I know it looks bad, but I can see all of this."

Rocky is not sure, but says he is shocked by his wife's enthusiasm.

"I think it's going to be a lot of work and it's pretty," he said. "Sophie has been talking about professionals, I'm talking about the drawbacks, but she convinced me."

Sophie smiled and said, "I think we balance each other in this way. I'm pessimistic on keen optimism and rocks, but I know we can't live here." Sophie smiled.

Sophie and Rocky closed the property in early 2024. The couple received a 30-year mortgage with a minimum monthly payment of $1,790.18 and plans to pay it off within five years.

Since moving a year ago, Sophie and Rocky have focused on renovating the home and the property itself. The couple estimates that they have spent about $13,000 so far: $9,000 on tools and $4,000 on tools inside the house.

This does not include the things the couple spent hundreds of hours doing, such as cleaning up old trees and bushes, getting rid of all poison ivy on the property, getting rid of the infestation of brown reclusive spiders - one of the two spiders in North America's Dangerous Venom, the other is Black Widow.

Sophie said when she looked back on her first year of living in a homestead, she divided it into two categories: work and their mindset.

"The first part of the year was a lot of cleanup. The place was covered in garbage, so it was a lot of travel to the dump. It was a lot of sorting stuff before we even brought it to the dump. It was also a mess with having too many animals, it was totally my fault, it was totally my fault, I didn't know, but I couldn't stop myself, either," she said.

"I think the first year is really hard, and even hard to get back to that place, but it's also so amazing and exciting. There's a lot to do, but it's all fun and exciting."

Sophie and Rocky also add new things to the garden, many fruit and nut trees, and over 30 animals including chickens, goats, guinea birds and cats.

In addition to adding to the ground, the couple also began renovating the house, including reworking the kitchen, bathroom and rooms throughout the house.

Both also try to keep themselves as self-sustained as possible. They ate the eggs from the chicken in the barn and then made cheese, creamer and bake with goat's milk. Hopefully, also hope to make your own hay using the materials obtained in the cleaning.

"We have our own eggs. We have fruit. It's going to be the first year we're going to be canning, which I learned from a neighbor," Sophie said. "We're redone a room that's putting it into the canning room, which will have anyone know how many months to go for food."

Sophie said the couple has been living on the property for over a year now, and the most important lesson she has learned is the impact one has had on a part of the planet.

"We're here and now you can see that as long as there are two people here working here for most of the time, you can ignore a place that is overlooked and change it," she said. "Now, we're seeing a rapid enrichment of all the work we put in. It makes you think more about our impact on the planet, especially in the process that leads to this land. It's a huge responsibility because you have a lot of ability to do well or bad."

For Loki, the biggest lesson he learned was his identity outside of his career. He served in the Marine Corps for a few years before transitioning to a maintenance career that spans over 20 years.

"He's related to this identity, and when I told him to quit his job and work full time, I saw the sirens coming into his mind," Sophie said. "I've asked him how he felt every few months or so since he quit, and the answer was the same every time, and he even forgot about the fact that he quit."

"People have a deep root in this culture that identify with their work," Rocky said. "When I left, I thought I might sit down and think about what I want to do at work today, but it never happened. The only thing I don't think about now is why I didn't do it earlier. ”

Sophie and Rocky have no plans to sell their property and are happy to continue working in homesteads, develop Sophie's skincare company, Seoul+ Soil, and share their journey on YouTube.

"I'm expecting not all of these huge projects, and all the main content is one, and then we just sit around Dilly and do our hobbies," Sophie said. "I always want to keep learning and end up sitting here for half the time."

Similar to Sophie, Rocky is looking forward to the era he can simply enjoy his hobby.

"I love reading and learning something, so the goal I'm going to say is to get to the point where I can do a day, read a day, learn something, and then almost use it the next day," Loki said. "I sit down and think about what my goal is, but it's more like a feeling, I've already had that feeling, I can sit down and just feel peaceful, I'd rather do somewhere else. I think I'm already at the destination."

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