When Kara Harms first saw this 1979 home in Arnold, California, it wasn’t so much love at first sight, as a maybe. “I had my heart set on an A-frame,” she says. “I feel like all the girlies love an A-frame, and I was really looking.” In fact, Kara toured one soon after seeing this cabin, but she was dismayed to find that it didn’t feel right in person. “The light was just not there,” she explains. “I walked in and it was dark and cold.”

On the three-hour drive back to the San Francisco apartment she shares with her husband, Robin Berenson, Kara listened to Taylor Swift’s album Midnights on repeat—it was October of 2022, and it had come out two days before—and by the time she arrived home, she had made her decision. The first cabin was the one.

Before: Living Room

Kara is no stranger to taking a leap of faith, which is how she also describes her move to the West Coast in 2014, after growing up in Wisconsin and going to college in Minneapolis. “I just really needed a break from the winter, to be honest,” says Kara. “Robin, my now husband, then boyfriend, had a family member living in the East Bay and I had my heart set on San Francisco, even though I’d never been here before.”

After: Living Room

After studying advertising and art in school, Kara worked in social media and marketing for start-ups before launching her own blog, Whimsy Soul, in 2015. Since then, it has grown into a lifestyle website covering travel and body-positive fashion and beauty. (Tagline: Find your everyday magic.) By purchasing and making over the cabin, the couple sought to extend the whimsy ethos to a series of rentable retreats they call Whimsy Homes.

“I’ve been in so many vacation rentals and hotels where I feel like if they just went a little braver in some things, it could have been one thousand out of ten,” Kara says. “I knew I wanted to go for big, bold, and colorful.” The cabin’s design was also influenced by a summer spent living in Copenhagen. “The Americans’ take on Scandinavian decor is very beige and gray and minimal, but I actually found it to be very vibrant,” says Kara.

$2,929 Wall Finishes	$6,500 Flooring	$15,000 Roofing
$650 Hardware	$3,100 Electrical	$830 Lighting
$300 Countertops	$3,128 Appliances	$27,405 Furnishings & Decor
$3,300 Labor	$30,500 General Contractor Fee	$1,000 Waste/Debris Removal
$9,000 Bathroom Shower Remodel	$11,000 Cedar Hot Tub	$1,100 EV Charger
$180 Custom Cabin Sign	$2,800 Bear Trash Locker	$1,700 Yardzen Whole Yard Package
Grand Total: $120,422

The existing cabin had a lot going for it—namely the forested setting and cozy, nostalgic elements like post-and-beam ceilings and a chunky stone fireplace. “I saw a lot of white walls, so there was an opportunity to play around and build something really special,” says Kara.

Of course, the cabin also had its weaknesses, such as the daisy-chain electrical wiring, “gross old, gray carpet,” and a shower liner that “crumbled when you touched it,” says Kara. Not to mention the assorted bear statues, paintings, and candle holders left behind by the previous owners with all their furniture. Kara and Robin hauled most of it off to the local thrift store or listed it on Facebook Marketplace.

This being their first remodel, they did as much of the labor as they could, guided by YouTube tutorials and a contractor who helped with the electrical, shower tile, and deck and hot tub installation. Their first lesson involved painting the living room walls a deep shade of green, and then posting pictures of the space. “I went viral accidentally on TikTok for all the wrong reasons,” says Kara. “I had literally thousands of people telling me it looked gross and sending me barf emojis.”

The problem? With the old carpet and furnishings still in place, the vision wasn’t complete. After a brief moment “where I regretted all my choices,” Kara says she stayed the course.

Next, the pair pulled up the carpet and Kara’s dad flew out to give them pointers on installing the new hardwood flooring themselves—a massive undertaking that was interrupted when the cabin was snowed in for a few weeks. “Until we got the floors down, it just felt very impossible—especially after we got snowed out and we came back to a house that was completely torn up,” says Kara. “But it felt very empowering afterwards.”

Before: Dining Room

After: Dining Room

The couple lived in Arnold for much of 2023 as they chipped away at the makeover, laying down new peel-and-stick floors in the kitchen and bathrooms, wallpapering five rooms, and finding just the right furnishings and fixtures to fit, like the suite of sky-blue kitchen appliances discovered on the Home Depot website. “I had my heart set on a cute little retro fridge, but Smegs are like $3,000,” says Kara. “I found this one for $600, and it was the perfect shade of blue.”

Before: Kitchen

After: Kitchen

Before: ABBA Bathroom

After: ABBA Bathroom

While the couple saved money through DIY projects, there was also a surprise splurge: installing a cedar hot tub on the lower deck. The logistics involved placing a concrete pad to support the new deck extension, and getting the tub down the backyard slope—which was going to require a crane, until the contractor proposed a different solution. “We tied a rope around the tub and wrapped it up in cardboard and rolled it down the hill,” says Kara. “That was nerve-racking.”

Now that it’s done, the couple spend a weekend every quarter at the cabin relaxing, and they’ve listed it on Airbnb for guests. “At the end of the day, I wanted it to feel delightful and whimsical, but also really cozy,” says Kara. It’s also a testament to the power of jumping in feet first, and learning along the way.

“Shout out to my husband for just going along with it. He was terrified,” says Kara. “I was just going off of blind faith that I could figure it out. It was a lot of hits and misses and learning curves. Looking back now, there are a lot of things where I’m like, ‘Hmm, that was a dumb mistake I did, but it’s fine.’ Next time I’ll know better.”

Before: Bathroom

After: Bathroom

Before: Loft

After: Loft

After: Bedroom

Before: Deck and Hot Tub

After: Deck and Hot Tub

More Budget Breakdown stories:

A Bay Area Couple Turn an A-Frame Near Yosemite Into a $600-a-Night Rental

A Couple Build a Cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains for $150K—Without Borrowing a Cent

A Seattle Family Builds a Rugged Cabin on a Remote Island for $41K

Project Credits:

Builder: Tom Kraft

Interior Design: Kara Harms / @thewhimsysoul