This Beautiful Ugandan Home Comes With An Equally Amazing Love Story

Living in Uganda wasn't a part of their life plan when Courtney and Laren Poole married in 2009. But, Laren worked long hours for Bridgeway Foundation, a nonprofit that supports human rights in East Africa. By the end of that year, he had made 17 round-trip flights to Africa, logging more than 850 hours of plane and airport time. It was grueling for him and lonely for Courtney. So, in 2012, the couple packed up everything and moved to Kampala, Uganda, in the hopes of finding more time for each other.

They enlisted the help of a broker and quickly found their dream home. After a bit of negotiating, they agreed on a rental price that was just a few hundred dollars less than the cost of leasing in San Diego. The next hurdle was actually furnishing the place, since there wasn’t a single item in the house — not even a stove or a fridge. “When we moved to Kampala,” says Courtney, “I found that I was so much more intentional about purchasing. We had to furnish an empty home with a limited budget, and [we had very few] options for retail.”

As the couple began to turn their house into a home, they found that decorating in Uganda comes with a few strings attached. Click through to find out how they navigated the design process — and launched a business along the way.