My name is Tarah and its great to meet you!

Fighting my Frugal side with Small Joys and Replacements

As most of you guys know I’m a pretty hard core penny pincher and frugal chicka. I can’t help it… I just hate waste. I come from a long line of women on BOTH sides of my family who would live with something working horribly forever… as long as it was still technically working. I’m not quite that bad. For example, the faucet we have in our master bathroom works great but it also splashes the heck out of the wall. After seven years I was ok with finally replacing it even though, technically, it worked fine. Sometimes even if something works AWESOME, it doesn’t work great for us and that’s where I really have to fight my frugal side. Read More »

How to build your own kitchen cabinets

This was one of the biggest “I don’t have any idea what I’m doing” moments I had during the renovation. A kitchen cabinet is really just a box with doors on it… right?…. right? Well I set out to build our kitchen one cabinet (and 2×4) at a time and I am still pretty happy with how it turned out to this day. Wish I had a LOT more pictures of myself during the process but back in 2015 I had a crappy cell phone and a rather nice camera that I also didn’t want anywhere near construction work… So I will always lament how many more pictures I always wish I had taken! See the kitchen today by going here. Read More »

New Faucet Install in our Master Bathroom

New Faucet Install in our Master Bathroom. I’ve got a whole post coming out in awhile devoted to me having to fight my frugal self. This is a perfect example of just how long I will put up with something as long as it “technically” works. Our master bathroom faucet was pretty and I liked it… However, it splashed the heck out of the wall behind it. I tried different little filters etc. and nothing helped. I have no doubt the fact that we have a vessel sink also contributed to this situation… Its been seven years lol. Read More »

How to: Build your own kitchen sink base! Do it yourself, wood working

Our throw back post this month came out all the way back in October, 2015! A lot has changed in my life since then, to say the least lol. I updated this post back in 2018 when I was still a single gal and had just finished giving our kitchen a giant makeover. Since then you guys know Lodi has joined me and we got married in June of 2022. This kitchen sink base is till going strong for us and we still love our old sink! Read More »

Little stained table gets a makeover for our Workshop Office

You guys may not recognize this little stained table even though it was in our entryway for years because I had it covered up. Unfortunately the coverings didn’t entirely protect it from the fact that it was my “plant stand” and inevitably it did end up water stained. When I did the big tackle of moving my office out of the entryway I also redesigned our entire entryway and this little table had to move out too. Read More »

Container Gardening and New Garden Building Plans

My first time container gardening! With our plans now to do something about the barn my gardening plans also had to change. Our vegetable garden is all of ten feet from the front of the barn so the likely hood of it coming out of this unscathed are very low and trying to protect it would just be inconvenient and silly. But this actually works for us as I had planned to tear out the garden and rebuild it at some point anyway. Well, no time like the present to tear it out I guess! Read More »

Doggie door flap, a Prettier Replacement using a Stencil

Replacing an ugly doggie door with a new flap and a pretty little stencil. A couple of years ago we moved our back door into the workshop so we could enclose a big closet and hallway to give us a third room on the main floor. This worked well for us as it gave Lodi a room for his hobbies and moving the back door into the workshop has been really convenient. If I have big projects, pieces of wood or tools etc. now I can just bring them to the back of the house and right on in to the workshop. Also, the back door is primarily used by our dogs with their doggie door in it, so any dirt they drag in primarily stays in the workshop which is our “dirtiest” room of the house anyway. Read More »

An old cabinet: Paint and new hardware for a face lift!

I just can’t get over how amazing it is for me revisiting these old posts. I guess this blog really is a diary of sorts but I totally forgot how long I lived with a REALLY crappy laundry room lol. It had no storage and it was just plain UGLY. Even after this “update” it went through many over hauls and took me a lot of time and work to get it into something that actually worked for us. It all started with this cabinet that my Grandparents’ made and, of course, its still there and going strong. Read More »

Dresser refinish before and after, refinishing furniture with black stain DIY

Continuing on our throwback series this post first came out all the way back in September of 2015. This was one of the first pieces of furniture I ever refinished so I learned a lot here at the expensive of myself lol. Instead of stripping I decided to just sand the whole thing down and stubbornly stuck with that silly plan. It took me a LONG time and A LOT of sand paper but, eventually, I did get down to the wood grain. I chose a black stain and new silver knobs and I really still love how it turned out. We still use it every day in our entryway! Read More »

Reupholstering Eleonora’s Rocking Chair

Moving on with our throwback posts this one published back in September of 2015 and was my first time reupholstering anything. Its funny looking back I didn’t remember how much I hated the fabric on this rocking chair after I got it done. I totally love it now! What I do remember though was what a long-fought job this was to get the old fabric off and finally refinish the whole chair. It was pretty icky actually. This little rocker is still with us up in our master bedroom closet where I use it every day! Read More »

Upholstered Coffee Table – Changing it up in our Living Room!

Upholstered coffee table in our living room. When I picked up this coffee table at an estate sale years ago I knew I wanted to upholster the top and make it more like a bench / way softer foot rest. It also doubled at making our couch big enough to practically create a bed too! At the time I picked a fun paisley table cloth on Amazon and we’ve loved it for years. However, well, spills happen and though the old fabric I chose held up for a long time it was time to be replaced. Read More »

Oak dresser from the screened in porch – before and after!

Our fifth blog post from September 2015. This dresser takes me a lot farther back than my moving into this old farm house and starting this blog. For as long as I can remember it was always out in the screened in porch. Who knew one day I would be taking it home with me, my heart full of grief, after my Grandma passed? It was one of my very first projects. I don’t know what compelled me to tackle all of the furniture from the house (maybe too much HGTV?) but I wasn’t willing to give up any of it and it turned out that I absolutely loved the work. Read More »

September 2023 – Major changes to our Yard

September 2023 well this year will be the year we changed the landscape of our entire yard. For the better? Yeah, I guess, but it sure is radical looking. Besides “the spot” from the missing barn now nearly our entire lawn has been torn apart with the install of our new septic system. Our septic guy told us that the septic tanks we had been using were the oldest he’d seen in 40 years. Was it working? Yeah but we were on borrowed time and, with our luck, we would have had a problem in mid February with 80 inches of snow and temps in the -30s. So we had it replaced. Read More »

August 2023 – Wrapping my head around THE SPOT

This August 2023 it became clear to me that Lodi is desperately trying to make me feel better about the missing barn in our yard. It is very sweet and coming from a good place. I don’t doubt the yard bothers him as well and he’s seen me just standing there staring at THE SPOT about a thousand times at this point. Because I do stare at it. In fact I’ve found myself spending a probably weird amount of “too-much-time” standing there just staring at it. It breaks my brain honestly. I’m sure he thinks I’m staring because I’m sad but that doesn’t actually feel like the case anymore. Read More »

July 2023 – Where do I even begin?

July 2023 – Our June blog post came out nearly a week before the end of June and a lot sure happened in those few days. I’ll start with one scary hilarious day. Lodi called me at work and stopped my heart, “You have to go home now!” My nephew had called him (thinking he was home because of his schedule) because, believe it or not, our horse was just seen running down the damn road. I talked to him while I bolted home and absolutely couldn’t believe it until I saw it… There was no way our 32 year old crabby old man who accidentally got out ONCE only to wait in panic to be let back in again… was just going for a joy run?! Read More »

Our old Barn is Gone

Well the big day(s) came and went and with it every last piece of our old barn. A few days before we knew the EXACT day, I realized I was in a really weird place. A place I’d never been emotionally in my life. Totally 50/50. On one hand I didn’t want this to happen at all and on the other I was ready to get it over with ASAP. It was like I just canceled myself out. I hadn’t been sleeping well and I knew what was causing my anxiety. Ready or not, it was time. Read More »

Starting as a 1915 Farmhouse – the Evolution of Grandma’s House

Like so many older homes our 1915 farmhouse has gone through a lot of overhauls and additions over the years. It began as a 500 square foot box with a same sized half story above it and a same sized basement beneath it. Also, like with a lot of homes from that era, the only access to the basement was on the outside of the home and the staircase to the second story was so steep it was dangerously akin to climbing a mountain. I was able to piece together where walls and doors were originally because they were shown in the hardwood floors uncovered (and then refinished) during the renovation. Read More »

June 2023 – Camping on our First Year Anniversary

June 2023 – Lodi and I have been married a year already! I feel like June really crept up on us. With the promise that we would do LESS and spend LESS spoken out loud the Universe apparently had a good chuckle at our expense. We unfortunately had some septic problems over the course of late May and June *head hits desk*. We have an odd situation when it comes to the septic in this home. I knew we had at least two separate septic tanks when I moved in here back in 2015. When I gutted the home I noted that the house’s drains had been using both septic “outs” that left the house via the basement. Read More »

Office Workshop Reveal

The final reveal of our office workshop! I’m sure its old news at this point but I’m just so happy with my new office here. How long has it been since I moved it from the entryway? Over 6 months for sure! But every time I come in here I am still just smitten and so glad to have it. Finally some space to work and play. I think just about everyone can identify trying to work from home without actually having a real office. Whether we’re trying to work on the couch with a laptop or at the dining room table… We can make it work but frankly there is nothing like having a REAL desk… not to mention an actual dedicated office space. Read More »

New Entryway Design… and some thoughts on rugs

A new design for our entryway. So I did a rug count in the house a while back and ended up feeling quite annoyed with myself actually. How many rugs does a 1,500 square foot main floor actually need? Apparently it was 19?! Now that was just seem borderline silly lol. To be fair most of them were the rag rugs that I love and a few came from my Grandma so I loved those even more. However, the majority of them had also seen better days. I started removing rugs or replacing them with more toned down and better alternatives. The entryway redesign here was my first opportunity to do just that! Read More »

New Living Room Layout, Redesign and Rearrange

So, it is interesting that we love this new redesign so much because it is LITERALLY my old layout plan for the living room that we tried and hated a few years back. There’s only one difference and I refuse to believe it’s actually why we hated this before. When we tried it back then the sofa encroached into the “hallway” by several more inches, making walking behind it feel kind of tight… Could that be it? A few inches on that side of the room? I talked about why we hated it before and it was because the room felt closed off… but somehow now, it feels bright, intimate and open all at the same time. Read More »

Master Bathroom and Master Closet Tour

Master Bathroom and Master Closet Tour it dawned on me this is the first time I’ve done a full reveal of these two rooms together. WAY back in 2015 was the last time you guys saw the closet and, even then, it wasn’t much of a reveal. You know I’ve been working on our master suite second floor for nearly a year now. I refused to stop until every. last. thing. I could think of was completed and / or fixed. I’m very happy with how it all turned out! Read More »

Elegear LED Lights! – Adding warmth to our main floor for Xmas

There’s been some changes here at Grandma’s house that you will definitely notice in the pictures! I’ve moved my office into our workshop thus freeing up our entryway entirely. There’s lots more to do and posts coming out all about my new office workshop and our new open plan entryway. But, first, what Lodi did with these incredible Elegear LED lights that were gifted to us! Check them out here on Amazon and make sure and use the 10% off discount code: DHSCZOTA Read More »

Holiday – a little autumn Home Tour

I admit in the past I haven’t done much decorating for the holiday around here. There was just always this little thing about budget lol. Not to mention generally far more important projects that I needed to put my dollars and time into. Things are changing around here though. We’ve managed to take several big projects off our plates so I realized we could afford to do a little holiday decorating. Read More »

To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #367)

Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party #367. Well we’re finally getting the rain we didn’t get all summer long, three inches in just a few hours this weekend! Sure sounded wonderful with all the thunder and lighting, I just love rain storms. Hopefully we can look forward to a long warm and rainy fall before winter tackles us. Now, on to the Party! Read More »

To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #366)

Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party #366. Well I just found out a few minutes ago that the case settled… so I don’t have jury duty lol yay! I literally don’t know anyone who has been summoned before and this is my SECOND time. So strange. Glad I didn’t need to take off work for it today though and am really just hoping to not get another summons! Now, on to the Party! Read More »

To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #365)

Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party #365. I absolutely love this time of year here in northern MN. Don’t get me wrong it does kind of depress me as we all know that its only a matter of time to when the snow flies. Regardless though, the perfect weather we’re having now is really something to be savored. The trees have started to turn and the high temps every day now are in the 70s. We put away our AC unit and look forward to a few weeks where we don’t need to turn the heaters on either. Now, on to the Party! Read More »

To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #364)

Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party #364. Well we have officially changed everything about the landscape of our yard. The barn is long gone and a new septic system is in. Ya know it kinda bothers me but honestly… It is better. And it will be much better once we get the yard covered in black dirt and seeded. That’s mostly a next year thing as we all know, winter is coming lol. The trees and everything is telling us that the summer is coming to a close. Now, on to the Party! Read More »

To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #363)

Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party #363. Well its about as dry as possible here in our little neck of the woods. Kind of given up on hoping for rain lol. Despite that though the weather is beautiful. Sunny 70s and 80s and a forecast of much of the same. There is a turn in the air now though and definitely cooling down at night. Let’s hope we get a nice long fall! Now, on to the Party! Read More »

To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #362)

Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party #362. Can I just say that I both hate and love this time of year equally? The long wind down where nothing but the sun moves in August and the heat haters complain constantly as I just sit here and happily sweat lol because you can feel that there’s a difference in the air. Something has turned. The air has changed. The horse has begun getting his winter coat, the trees have a couple of leaves turned in color. Fall has begun despite us summer lovers striving against it. Now, on to the Party! Read More »

OMG Pumpkins everywhere! Hometalk Fall Decor Inspiration board

Hometalk Fall Decor Inspiration board! Summer is absolutely my favorite time of the year – you will NEVER hear me complaining about the heat lol But I honestly think that’s a fact simply because fall and spring are such short seasons here in northern MN. Fall for us could truly last all of three weeks like our spring did this year! And that’s just depressing lol because that means we’re settling into at least four months of some serious cold and snow. Read More »

Hometalk’s Outdoor Projects I Can’t Wait to Build! Do it Yourself!

Inspiration Board of the Outdoor projects on Hometalk that I’ve been drooling over! I received a comment on my outdoor bench saying, “You’re SO crafty, that’s amazing!” And I admittedly got a bit offended, eventually I just laughed about it but I’m not sure how I can build a wrap around bench for my deck and still be called “crafty”. I could’t help but think that if I was a guy she certainly wouldn’t have looked at that bench and called him crafty! I am a builder at heart and I spend most of my time building things in my head or drooling over outdoor projects like these: Read More »

Let’s build some swings! Pinterest Do It Yourself Inspiration Board!

Well now that spring has FINALLY arrived, my dreaming has turned to swings! Let’s build some! These are some of my favorites I’ve found on Pinterest and stashed away for a later time because, seriously, who doesn’t want to swing away a beautiful summer day? Contrary to popular belief, I do NOT feel that swings are for kids in any way. Many of these are very grown up swings for us “adults” lol Read More »

Nooks and Getaway Places: Pinterest Inspiration Board

Nooks, crannies, special getaway places, some of my favorite escapes via Pinterest Inspiration board. It has been a very difficult few weeks here at Grandma’s House, tailing the end of a very, very hard year. I will tell you guys why and what’s been going on when I’m able to get my feet back under me again. To say the least though I have found myself on Pinterest, looking longingly at getaway places and nooks that promise quiet and PEACE. Read More »

Inspiration Board: Six more Summer Projects I can’t wait to build!

Six more summer projects I can’t wait to build for us outside and out on our deck! Some DIYs and things just have to wait for some nice weather not only for us to enjoy them but for us to build them as well. Currently I’m sitting here in late October and we have a winter storm warning 🙁 So, hears to dreaming about next summer and all the things to look forward to building. I posted earlier this year a few summer projects I just can’t wait to build but I’ve seen so many build projects on Pinterest I had to share a few more that I can’t wait to build next summer! Read More »

Inspiration Board: Gorgeous Bedrooms to swoon over!

I spend a certain amount of time on Pinterest gazing with my mouth open at some of the gorgeous bedrooms people have. As far as Inspiration Boards go I’ve published quite a few over the years but I think this one might take the cake. I am absolutely in awe of a few of these. Considering how much time we spend in our bedrooms (albeit it is with our eyes closed) I am a firm believer that they are a VERY important part of our homes. From gorgeous colour palettes to hardwood bedroom furniture options, there’s always amazing bedrooms to look at when you are scrolling through Pinterest. In fact, the inspiration doesn’t stop coming the moment you type in beautiful bedrooms into Google! So, without further adieu here’s some gorgeous bedrooms via Pinterest!! Read More »

Transforming Your Garden into a Cool Oasis for Summer

Aw with our leaves changing we’re not far now from seeing freezing temperatures at night and, though I am totally not ready for winter, I can still dream of our garden next summer! Our backyard is currently totally destroyed from all the digging that had to be done for our new septic system but I’ve decided to think instead of it as a blank slate. Now we can reseed and recreate the whole space! Read More »

Easy DIY Renovations For Your Bathroom

Bathrooms can really make or break a home but they can also be pretty inexpensive to freshen up and make nice again. Paint plays a huge factor here as just about everything in a bathroom can be updated with a fresh coat of paint from tile to tubs etc. A new sink or just new faucets (that just about anyone can replace) can really freshen up an outdated space! Read More »

The Self-Discovery of Growing Your Own Marijuana

As of August first of this year marijuana became legal in our state! Pretty crazy to think when I was growing up how it was treated like such a huge scary drug. I use Delta 8 occasionally to help me sleep but I have a couple of family members who use prescribed marijuana for pain and it improved their lives so much. I’ve looked into growing it to sell mostly out of curiosity as I (to be frank) always preferred alcohol lol. But now with the states changing to make it legal I might have to give it a try again! Read More »

Top 6 Home Improvements That Add Significant Value

For the majority of us adding value to our homes can actually cost very little if we’re willing to put in the sweat equity. Paint is incredibly inexpensive and can produce amazing bang for your buck results. A good clean, organization, removing all unnecessary clutter is free and helps so much when it comes to staging a home to sell. Read More »

How to Make Every Appliance in Your Home Last Longer

I saw a great chart at one point online that I need to go find again that broke down weekly, monthly and yearly maintenance on an entire home which, of course, included every possible appliance. One thing I never noticed growing up (I’m sure my mom took care of it) was how often a dishwasher actually needs to be cleaned. I clean the filter about once a week and give the entire inside a full wipe down. And then about once a month I run an empty load with a cup of bleach in it. Read More »

How to Create Raised Beds for Your Garden

I am so excited for next year to rebuild our garden with brand new raised beds! This year I’m doing the “container gardening” thing which is working so far but already I am seeing how much LESS it will produce compared to the years we had our garden. That’s ok for one year though and its been fun to have less to maintain. Next year though I have lots of plans for our new garden! Read More »