Budget Breakdown: They Gave a Bland ’70s Cabin a Psychedelic Glow-Up for $120K

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.

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.