My name is Tarah and its really great to meet you!
Around here we really do it all: refinish old furniture, re-purpose old pieces or build it from scratch. Lodi and I have some serious plans for this old farm. For the first time I have a real partner! I can't wait to see what the two of us can do together - this is gonna be so much fun!
BEFORE AND AFTERS
DO IT YOURSELF
THE BLOG
HOME TOURWhat's been happening this week
Basement Ceilings Painted BLACK – A Spray Painting Job from Hell…
First thing was first with the basement: tape anything off that needs to be covered and spray paint the ceilings black. If you read the Basement Planning post than you know we were considering a drop ceiling. In the end this just made more sense. It was a lot less costly and its a look we each like about a thousand times more. Drop ceilings only had one thing going for them: we could have insulated between the floors but it just wasn’t worth it for us. Read More »
Choosing the Right Floor Material for Your Home
I was never a big fan of carpet and I always hated tile floors and linoleum was never my jam so it won’t surprise anyone to hear that literally the only flooring in our entire home is wood. The majority of it is original to the home which I either refinished or, those that were already painted, I re-painted. What’s funny though is, now that I’ve lived with hardwoods since 2015, I kinda get why a carpeted room isn’t so bad lol however, now that I discovered that vacuuming (due to this amazing cordless vacuum) is a much better alternative to sweeping I’m loving my floor material choice a lot more again! Read More »
How to Upgrade the Quality and Finish of Your Home
How to upgrade and improve your home by yourself with minimal time and effort for future sales or just for a more beautiful home for you! Art, plants and a new paint color on the walls are probably the easiest and least expensive way to start. Beyond that though upgrades like new flooring and built ins can vastly improve your house either for resale or just for you! Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #203)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #203. I love this moment with the garden (I would totally garden anyway regardless of this moment) but the fact that by August of every year its already paid for itself is pretty darned cool! Just a few cucumbers so far but we’ve had several meals of green beans, peas and beats! Kohlrabi is on the way and so are the melons. The herbs just make me silly happy though and our oregano, basil, thyme and dill just did amazing this year. I love stuffing chicken breasts with Parmesan and that whole combo of herbs – MAJOR YUM. Now, on to the Party! Read More »
Bar Top Deck Railing with the Last Piece of Grandpa’s Oak
Bar top deck railing. Teaming up in our DIY Blog Hop this month with backyard projects! (We’d love for you to join us – click here for more info!) I’ve been seeing this idea all over the internet the past year and it occurred to me that its definitely something we would get a ton of use out of! Since I started the renovation in 2014 I’ve been hacking away at using all of the wood leftover in the barn from when my Grandparents’ were wood workers. Besides random stashed wood there was one very special, very hidden, pile that I spotted right away: VERY old, rough cut oak and pine that was simply gorgeous. Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #202)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #202. Our garden has begun to produce in earnest and its just so wonderful to have the organic fresh produce. We’ve had several meals of fresh peas, green beans and beats now. Cucumbers are coming soon and the melons and kohlrabi are on their way. Our fresh basil, dill and sage are doing incredible and I’m basically throwing them in every meal I can! Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, peppers just don’t do well in our garden and I can’t figure that out at all. Now, on to the Party! Read More »
Most recent from Do It Yourself
Basement Ceilings Painted BLACK – A Spray Painting Job from Hell…
First thing was first with the basement: tape anything off that needs to be covered and spray paint the ceilings black. If you read the Basement Planning post than you know we were considering a drop ceiling. In the end this just made more sense. It was a lot less costly and its a look we each like about a thousand times more. Drop ceilings only had one thing going for them: we could have insulated between the floors but it just wasn’t worth it for us. Read More »
Bar Top Deck Railing with the Last Piece of Grandpa’s Oak
Bar top deck railing. Teaming up in our DIY Blog Hop this month with backyard projects! (We’d love for you to join us – click here for more info!) I’ve been seeing this idea all over the internet the past year and it occurred to me that its definitely something we would get a ton of use out of! Since I started the renovation in 2014 I’ve been hacking away at using all of the wood leftover in the barn from when my Grandparents’ were wood workers. Besides random stashed wood there was one very special, very hidden, pile that I spotted right away: VERY old, rough cut oak and pine that was simply gorgeous. Read More »
Tiny Bathroom – Getting a Plan together for this little Neglected space
Getting a bathroom plan together… When I started the renovation in 2014 one of the biggest conundrums I had was what to do about the main floor bathroom. If it stayed where it was (behind the kitchen) I would either have to continue accessing it through the living room and keep a VERY dangerous VERY steep staircase OR rebuild the staircase and access the bathroom through the kitchen. The staircase was typical in a farmhouse this age, it was literally like climbing a mountain and not something I wanted to do on a daily basis to the second floor master suit… Read More »
Cable Rails – a DIY Inexpensive Upgrade for our Deck!
Putting new cable wire deck rails in! Teaming up in our DIY Blog Hop this month with deck projects! (We’d love for you to join us by linking up below or click here for more info!) I made the conduit railings for the deck a few years ago even though I knew I would need to replace them eventually because: DOGS! The new cable rails moved to the top of the list this spring because Annie is now a permanent resident and she was very good at sneaking off to the treasure trove of a pasture full of horse poop. I can’t even express how annoyed we became of yelling at (and bathing) the damn dog. Not that I really blamed her… But having all of our doors to the deck open is mandatory for my happiness as long as the weather makes it possible! So, it was time for a solution that Annie could not get through… Read More »
Basement Before Pics – Planning the renovation of my forgotten space!
When I wrote my Winter To-Do-List last fall my poor basement was literally the LAST thing on my mind. In fact I had totally put my basement out of my head! But that certainly was not always the case: After I threw my ex out two years ago I moved my workshop out of here with the plan to put in a rental suite ASAP for the extra income. Read More »
Furniture Layout – Continuing the Guest Bedroom Redesign
In my last post about redesigning the guest bedroom to be more unisex we got the room painted out and ready for furniture. This room has some real problems when it comes to being a bedroom. What makes it unique is also what makes the layout so challenging. There is no wall to put the bed on. Every single wall has a window. Every time I’ve moved furniture around in here I get annoyed. My OCD goes crazy because nothing balances! Read More »
Most recent from Before and After
Adding Tufted Upholstery to an old Coffee Table
Adding a tufted top and a new paint job to an old coffee table. I’ve been working on the refresh of my living room for awhile now. It started when I decided I hated my sofa and was ready for a new one! That worked out perfect because I really needed my old sofa to complete my seating area out in my garage. Following my old sofa to the garage was my coffee table and one of my end tables too! That left my living room pretty barren: the perfect time to do a makeover! Read More »
Three Legged Stool Makeover: Paint and stain combo with dipped legs
Teaming up with Chas in our DIY blog hop this month with projects for our bathrooms! (Make sure and check out all of the bathroom projects following this post and feel free to join in!) This little stool has a fun story behind it. My Grandparents’ were wood workers and made and sold lots of these along with many other pieces of furniture. One of my neighbors is an avid follower of my blog and felt she simply had to return it to me so this milking stool came home after being gone for over 30 years! Read More »
Lace Doily Upcycling on my Radio Stand Kitchen Island
Lace doily upcycling across the front of my kitchen island that I made out of my great grandpa’s radio stand. This piece remains one of my ALL TIME favorite transformations that I’ve created. Some projects just work! It was like this old radio stand had been waiting 100 years to be made into a kitchen island. It looks great from the front and the shelves in the back house all my recipe books too. During my recent kitchen remodel I did some surgery on it to work even better for me. Read More »
Thrift Store Lamp gets a Country Makeover with the Farmhouse Hens
So, a few months ago, I went to my local thrift store to get myself a sweater to make mug koozies for my Christmas in a Jar post. I left the thrift store with two sweaters, some shop rags, a mirror tray and a lamp! To be fair I still only spent $8 and no one really believed I was just gonna be able to get one sweater right? Read More »
Lamp gets a country girl makeover using license plates! Before and After!
My new guest bedroom and library needed a reading lamp for the bedside table so, of course, I went thrifting! I found this little dude for only $6 and then went directly to walmart and found what I decided was the perfect burlap lamp shade. From there it was time to decide just how I was going to transform this little lamp into something country and fun! Using two old MN license plates I got to work! Read More »
A little end table gets a full on adult country girl redo!
There are a lot of changes taking place here at my Grandma’s old farmhouse. You guys know now that I got divorced and that means new and very different plans for the whole house. My old office is now going to become my guest bedroom and library and it felt really important to refinish all of the furniture that will be going in there. So, I got to work! Read More »
Most recent from The Blog
July 2020 starting with a heat wave that totally BROKE me
July 2020. Every. Single. Year. I panic right now. Whether its because we hit the longest day of the year in late June. Or that the year is suddenly HALF over or its because I just got a flier in the mail about purchasing pellets for this winter. OR, the fact that we just put up the hay for the horses also FOR THIS WINTER. Every. Single. Year. I panic about everything that isn’t done yet that needs to be done before the snow flies. As if, suddenly, two days passed June, the count down begins. I lose my damn mind. Read More »
2020 June Gardens – For the Love of Dirt and the Spring Photo Gallery!
2020 Gardens – June blog post. One of my favorite moments of every year is when I open the windows in the master bedroom and know I probably won’t have to close them again for several months. After closed doors, no fresh air, cooped up and freezing outside its absolute Heaven to me. Fortunately Lodi is a lot like me and opens all our doors if he gets home before I do. I hate air conditioning. This house stays really cool most of the time but this June pushed us to our limit! Read More »
May 2020 – Flowers to be Planted, Spring is Here, Life Goes On
May 2020 was a far less freaky month for me than April was – I guess I “adapted” to the pace of quarantine. Disinfecting my entire day job became thoughtless habit, avoiding people at the store became second nature (not that it wasn’t already for this introvert…) and emotionally freaking out about the craziness became impossible to keep up. Saying we “got used” to living in a world in the midst of a global pandemic sounds insane but bills still needed to be paid. Gardens still needed to be planted. Life still deserved to be lived. Life does always, somehow, keep going on. Read More »
2020 Summer To Do List and Plans for Next Fall and Winter too
At the end of 2019 I tackled my Winter to do list and completed a total overhaul of my living room and a makeover for my guest bedroom too. (More about the bedroom coming soon!) Those two spaces were my two biggest items so I’m happy with what I completed – but its time to start thinking about summer already! Which means its time to make some new lists and put a couple of things on the back burner for next winter. Read More »
April 2020, Finding Silver Linings and Ways to Keep our Sanity
I rewrote my last blog post about a thousand times because of Covid-19 changing our lives by the minute. I really regret that now because I deleted a lot of what had been going on with us before everything went to hell. These little updates I put out once a month have become a bit of a journal for me that I’ve really liked to have. So I’m going to start writing in more past tense about the whole month – so this was our month of April 2020 at Grandma’s House. Read More »
Almost Spring 2020 – Uncertain times
Almost Spring 2020 – So, as most of you know, I generally have projects/posts complete and scheduled for publication a couple of months ahead of time. I don’t mean for you guys to not see what I’m working on as its happening but deadlines kill me. It is what is. However, this doesn’t totally ring true of my personal updates/blog posts like this one. Generally I write these a couple of weeks (maybe a month) before they come out here. (That’s about as close to a deadline as my anxiety will let me get.) However… Read More »
Most recent from Home Tour
Bedroom Reveal – Completing the New Guest Bedroom Unisex Redesign!
I’m so excited to finish the new guest bedroom reveal! My old country girl design and library just wasn’t right anymore and this room needed attention badly. It needed to grow up,l become more unisex and also become a lot more comfortable for any guests or friends that might stay. It all started with a new far more grown up paint color called Flannel Gray by Valspar. From there I tackled the challenging furniture layout and now moved on to the final touches, design and completion. Read More »
Living Room Reveal – Farm Houses can be Classy, Fun & Practical!
Farmhouse living room reveal! OMG you guys this room took me over 5 months to finish – UGH Finally though, we have arrived at the new living room. It probably seems strange and even silly but buying a new sofa meant something to me. Throughout the entire home almost every single piece of furniture here I’ve either inherited or I built. The few other pieces besides I picked up at either thrift stores or garage sales. I literally only have one “new” thing and its my dining room chairs which my mom bought for me as a gift MANY years ago! Read More »
DIY Farmhouse Kitchen Reveal! A Bigger Closet and a Bigger Kitchen!
DIY Farmhouse Kitchen Reveal, somehow I took space AWAY from my kitchen and yet I ended up with MORE storage and a bigger feeling space! In this kitchen I will always think of my amazing Grandma Charlotte who lived in this home for over fifty years before me. I was thrilled that this old farmhouse could become mine and ecstatic at the notion of creating my very own farmhouse kitchen. This space was a VERY long time coming for me. I had no idea it would take me from early spring of 2014 until right now, to finally create and finish the kitchen of my dreams. But, ya know what? It was worth it! Read More »
A Farmhouse Entryway, Office and Dining Room Reveal
I should have posted a reveal of my entry way back when I first “completed” it in 2016. But, honestly, it never felt truly “done” until now. The wood stove happened and the entire room needed to be repainted because of smoke damage and then, because I had it cleared out I went ahead and gave my floors some TLC too. Finally though I was able to take my time and put it all back together again! Read More »
My Laundry Room Reveal – How one gorgeous table cloth started it all!
Finally we have come to the reveal of my new laundry room! Yep, I am no longer calling it a closet – I believe this space deserves to be labeled a real room now. First I tackled the heavy lifting, recycling my old kitchen pantry here in several places, building custom shelves, trimming it all out and painting the whole room. From there I added some color and then, finally, I was able to put it all together with some serious organization. Read More »
My New Workshop Reveal – Fancy, Fun and Organized!
Well I finally made it – here is my finished brand new workshop reveal! This was a LONG time coming: My first post about moving my workshop out of my basement came out in MAY OF LAST YEAR. I lived in a constant state of digging through boxes, looking for one tool or another, and going absolutely bat shit crazy lol. Read More »
Most recent from Link Party
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #203)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #203. I love this moment with the garden (I would totally garden anyway regardless of this moment) but the fact that by August of every year its already paid for itself is pretty darned cool! Just a few cucumbers so far but we’ve had several meals of green beans, peas and beats! Kohlrabi is on the way and so are the melons. The herbs just make me silly happy though and our oregano, basil, thyme and dill just did amazing this year. I love stuffing chicken breasts with Parmesan and that whole combo of herbs – MAJOR YUM. Now, on to the Party! Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #202)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #202. Our garden has begun to produce in earnest and its just so wonderful to have the organic fresh produce. We’ve had several meals of fresh peas, green beans and beats now. Cucumbers are coming soon and the melons and kohlrabi are on their way. Our fresh basil, dill and sage are doing incredible and I’m basically throwing them in every meal I can! Unfortunately, for the second year in a row, peppers just don’t do well in our garden and I can’t figure that out at all. Now, on to the Party! Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #201)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #201. Hey all, well I am officially freaking out because it feels like summer is almost over and I haven’t even put a DENT in our “must get done before winter” to do list! This feels incredibly familiar because, of course, I do this every year. There’s something about hitting July that just makes me panic lol We finally did get some real rain though and the garden is beginning to really produce – love the fresh veggies every day! Now, on to the Party! Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #200)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #200. OMG you guys I’ve been doing this link party for 200 weeks in a row! WOW! Thank all of you for joining us every week, sharing the party and getting on board! Well, Lodi and I put the air conditioner in one of our windows…. with absolutely no hope for rain and after being missed by storm after storm and suffocating trying to sleep in a 90 degree bedroom for WEEKS. I broke. First time in all the years I lived here that my stubborn butt was beat by the heat! Of course this is 2020 after all and not six hours later we finally got hit by a thunderstorm that appeared out of nowhere and broke our drought and heat streak… *facepalm* Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #199)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #199. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend! With all that’s going on in this crazy world anymore we tried hard to have a chill weekend and some serious R&R. Of course I still did some work on the house but that’s nothing new lol. Around here we need rain DESPERATELY and have seen some serious heat. Our whole yard has become crunchy – getting everything watered is starting to feel like a full time job! Now, on to the Party! Read More »
To Grandma’s House we go! (Wednesday Link Party #198)
Welcome to the To Grandma’s House We Go link party #198. Wow, as weird as this year has been I didn’t think I’d say this but where did June go? I can’t believe this weekend is the fourth of July already OMG we haven’t got near enough done on the yard lol time to crack the whip on MYSELF. I love this time of the year and I also hate it because we just stored the hay for the horses for this winter and Lodi and I just talked about ordering pellets for the pellet stove also for this winter… Can’t we pretend summer isn’t going to end for even ONE minute!? Now, on to the Party! Read More »
Most recent from Inspiration Board
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. So, without further adieu here’s some gorgeous bedrooms via Pinterest!! Read More »
Most recent from Contributed
Choosing the Right Floor Material for Your Home
I was never a big fan of carpet and I always hated tile floors and linoleum was never my jam so it won’t surprise anyone to hear that literally the only flooring in our entire home is wood. The majority of it is original to the home which I either refinished or, those that were already painted, I re-painted. What’s funny though is, now that I’ve lived with hardwoods since 2015, I kinda get why a carpeted room isn’t so bad lol however, now that I discovered that vacuuming (due to this amazing cordless vacuum) is a much better alternative to sweeping I’m loving my floor material choice a lot more again! Read More »
How to Upgrade the Quality and Finish of Your Home
How to upgrade and improve your home by yourself with minimal time and effort for future sales or just for a more beautiful home for you! Art, plants and a new paint color on the walls are probably the easiest and least expensive way to start. Beyond that though upgrades like new flooring and built ins can vastly improve your house either for resale or just for you! Read More »
8 Ways To Turn Your Bedroom Into Something You’ll Fancy A Lot More
Of all the rooms in this old farmhouse of ours I would definitely say that our master is VERY fancy. It even makes me FEEL fancy. What’s lovely is just how much for very little we can do to improve our bedrooms. new bedding, a new color on the walls, a more temperate way of heating and cooling. Even just a simple fan to help move the air around and drown out static noise can go a very long way in making our bedrooms serve us better. Read More »
Preparing Your Home For A Sale
Preparing your home for sale can be an enormous job. I’ve always given this advice first: If you plan on selling your home within the next year than START PACKING NOW. The best step up you can give yourself is to remove everything from your home that you don’t need. A storage unit can help a ton with this and it will also give you a leg up and donating etc. With your excess out of the way preparing your home for sale will be A LOT easier to do! Read More »
Simple Ways to Upgrade Your Home
One thing I realized a long while back is how much even some of the simplest projects can upgrade our lives! I remember just adding a little basket to my kitchen sink area for soap and sponges and things and OMG it was so great them not balanced on the back of the sink anymore! It took so little time but it was such a huge upgrade for us at the time. Since then I gave up and put in full on open shelving above the sink but I’ll never forgot what an easy little project once did to upgrade my kitchen life. Read More »
How to Maintain Your Septic System Correctly
I wouldn’t trade living out in the country for anything however it definitely has a couple of things to consider that will never be an issue with a town home. A well and a septic tank are the two biggest issues that come to mind. They both will require maintenance over the years and even (expensively) even need to be replaced. Our well isn’t huge and that translates to not a whole lot of water pressure BUMMER and we have two (two?!) septic tanks that came with the house and I used them both when I ran all the plumbing! Read More »
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