I’ve had Under the Tuscan Sun on my mind this week. Based on a true story, Diane Lane plays Frances Mayes, a recently divorced writer who buys a crumbling 300-year-old villa in Tuscany and painstakingly restores it — building a home, a community, and a life for herself in the process.

While not exactly earth-shattering cinema, it’s one of my favourite movies. This woman is living my dream. And it’s one of the few movies I can think of that shows a woman building something on screen. Isn’t that crazy?

I recently met a realtor whose story reminds me a little of Ms. Mayes’. In 2004, Despina Zanganas sold her condo and took a big leap to purchase a five-bedroom, semi-detached home in Toronto’s now-booming Little Italy neighbourhood. At the time, she stretched her budget to the absolute max, paying $456,000 for the fixer-upper.

Like Mayes in Under the Tuscan Sun, Despina told me she cried on her first night in the house — fearing that she’d paid too much for a run-down property. But over three years, she renovated it almost entirely by herself. Today, she says buying the place was without a doubt the best decision she’s ever made. And now she specializes in helping women in real estate, encouraging them to take the leap like she did.

For this week's story, I interviewed Despina and Annastacia Plaskos (the founder and CEO of a renovation company in Toronto) to share their experiences building homes, renovating attitudes and making moves.