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In one week, Lindy Dodge, a furniture maker and owner of James Furniture Co., and her engineer husband Travis Dodge went from renting a place in Olympia to owning a craftsman home in Tacoma.

“Renting didn’t make sense anymore so we thought we’d buy an old junker,” she says. But they had no idea it would all happen so fast. “We found this 3,000-square-foot house on Zillow and it was in total disrepair, but we were able to look past it all and see that it had great bones.” So the couple scooped up the built-in-1912 fixer–for quite the steal–and embarked on a four-month-long renovation project, tackling everything themselves despite having no real renovation experience.

“My husband has a passion for making things new,” Dodge says. “And my mom is an interior designer, so home decor is just ‘in me.'”

The Dodge’s Tacoma craftsman before

The kitchen before
The couple gutted their main living space, tearing up green-and-pink carpeting (which revealed original fir floors that were sadly unsalvageable) and ripping out walls (one between the dining room and kitchen to create a small pass-through window and one between the sunroom to create an open breakfast nook off the kitchen). They slicked the walls and ceiling in a crisp white paint and added new wide-plank hardwood floors throughout. In the kitchen, they removed the drop-in ceiling tiles and exposed the 12-foot ceilings overhead, to which they gave a similar coffered look to match the living room. Original heart-shaped tile countertops were covered with a cost-effective (read: $10) concrete. To save even more money, they painted the existing cabinets in a striking blue and installed gold hardware.

“We didn’t have $20,000 to do a kitchen remodel,” Dodge says. “So we made the rest of the house beautiful and updated the kitchen for a little above $500.”

Dodge scoured thrift stores for vintage, inexpensive furnishings and snagged a wood table from France that serves as her kitchen island. When she heard someone was gutting a Tacoma middle school, she pounced on the opportunity and secured a row of circa-1920s theater seats for her living room. A work bench, unearthed in small shed on the property that was jam-packed with the former owners’ old stuff (it’s now the spot where Dodge does all her furniture handiwork), has new life as a buffet in the dining room.

The end result is a calming retreat with a mix of traditional pieces and eclectic California cool, two styles that Dodge loves. “We tried to follow suit with the character of the house.”

Now that the drywall dust has settled from the main living space redo, the pair is ready to tackle floor number two, which will involve re-sheetrocking everything since the existing plaster work is in such bad shape. “Remodeling is tough. Sometimes you’re at your wit’s end and once we finished everything I had to take a break,” Dodge says. “But then I reached a point and said ‘let’s get up there and make a mess again.” She’s particularly excited to do just that in the master bathroom, where an old pink clawfoot tub is slated to be the star of her design. (Pinterest has been her go-to site for bath inspiration.)

Amid all the remodeling, Dodge still manages her furniture business–which centers around these fabulous tufted headboards–and recently she and photog friend Candice Hackett launched the workshop series company Classroom Collective, where creative crafty types meet up in downtown Tacoma to learn how to dye textiles, work with leather or arrange flowers.

Those creative skills certainly served her well during the remodel. “We’re just young kids who have no idea what we were doing and we did as much as we could until we ran out of money.”

Scroll for more photos of the gorgeous space.

Dodge scoured thrift stores for vintage, inexpensive furnishings and snagged a wood table from France that serves as her kitchen island. When she heard someone was gutting a Tacoma middle school, she pounced on the opportunity and secured a row of circa-1920s theater seats for her living room. A work bench, unearthed in small shed on the property that was jam-packed with the former owners’ old stuff (it’s now the spot where Dodge does all her furniture handiwork), has new life as a buffet in the dining room.

The end result is a calming retreat with a mix of traditional pieces and eclectic California cool, two styles that Dodge loves. “We tried to follow suit with the character of the house.”

Now that the drywall dust has settled from the main living space redo, the pair is ready to tackle floor number two, which will involve re-sheetrocking everything since the existing plaster work is in such bad shape. “Remodeling is tough. Sometimes you’re at your wit’s end and once we finished everything I had to take a break,” Dodge says. “But then I reached a point and said ‘let’s get up there and make a mess again.” She’s particularly excited to do just that in the master bathroom, where an old pink clawfoot tub is slated to be the star of her design. (Pinterest has been her go-to site for bath inspiration.)

Amid all the remodeling, Dodge still manages her furniture business–which centers around these fabulous tufted headboards–and recently she and photog friend Candice Hackett launched the workshop series company Classroom Collective, where creative crafty types meet up in downtown Tacoma to learn how to dye textiles, work with leather or arrange flowers.

Those creative skills certainly served her well during the remodel. “We’re just young kids who have no idea what we were doing and we did as much as we could until we ran out of money.”

Scroll for more photos of the gorgeous space.