Tim and Sophie construction — The couple that DIYs together stays together.

My husband and I bought a somewhat dilapidated cabin in the Hamptons last year.
We've always wanted to make something ourselves, and after spending most of our money buying the place, we decided to renovate it entirely.
With no prior experience besides watching YouTube tutorials, we did all of the demolition and re-did the kitchen, bathroom, both bedrooms, and the living room ourselves.
The only thing we outsourced was putting in new walls and rewiring.
For around nine months, we spent almost every weekend doing work on the place. The before-and-after photos speak for themselves.

To my husband and I, the ocean is better than any marriage counselor could ever be.

Maybe our love for it stems from the months we spent backpacking across Australia — our only worry being where the waves were good and where we'd pitch our tent that night — or it's because we got married in Montauk a decade later. Whatever the reason, we're just better, happier people at the beach.

Which is why we decided to buy a beach house. Or really, a house as close to the beach as we could afford, which it turns out is not that close in the Hamptons.

When we first saw the place we now call The Surf Cabin, it was not love at first sight. During that first visit, I tried touching as little as possible: Dust covered every inch of the place, there was junk everywhere, and a peeling brown linoleum floor welcomed us in the living room.

But somehow, the same light bulb went on in both our heads: The place had potential. We saw beyond the brown floor and oddly-shaped rooms and saw the airy, California-inspired cabin of our dreams. Sure, we'd basically have to knock down everything but the exterior walls, but we saw it. We went home to Brooklyn and immediately started sketching out ideas.

After buying the place, we spent almost every weekend for around nine months renovating it ourselves, and began documenting our DIY adventures on Instagram. With no prior experience besides watching YouTube tutorials, we did absolutely everything except put in new walls and rewire the electrical.

Since we're renovating on a budget, we also came up with some creative, temporary fixes to tide us over until we can afford to make permanent changes. One thing we realized is that this place will never be "done" — we keep coming up with new projects.

Keep scrolling to see how we've transformed the place so far.

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Before-and-after photos show how my husband and I turned a dingy cabin into a dreamy beach house with virtually no DIY experience