A tumbledown Montana farmhouse is brilliantly restored by a scrappy husband-and-wife team.

Inside a Farmhouse Fixer-Upper’s Stunning DIY Makeover
Dave Lauridsen
Most Searched Homes: Farmhouse

When Felesha and Jerimiah McAfee removed the sub-standard insulation from the walls of their recently purchased fixer-upper—a 1920s farmhouse near Glacier National Park—they realized their real estate agent might have had a point. “He tried to steer us away because it needed a lot of work, but this home had character,” Felesha says. “It was the one…. I wanted to buy the house because of the wraparound porch. It stole my heart at the very beginning.”

Inside, she saw past the sagging drop ceilings and dated finishes and imagined a light-soaked interior with clean lines and rustic textures. The goal: a vacation home that could pay for itself by serving as a summer rental. They would do it all by themselves, squeezing $50,000 from their bank accounts to finance the project (furnishings and accessories included) over a period of four years.

The McAfees recently sold their two-bedroom cabin to Kristin and Ryan Suhi, who still offer it on Airbnb as a rental in Bigfork, Montana.