How Harry and Jean breathed new life into their home

Harry and Jean said “On the surface, it is an easily and simply defined place. But hardly that in reality. I take ours for granted. Except when I find myself in someone else’s kitchen, or they in mine, and we are both a bit lost. Then it comes home to me that our place is not exactly conventional. But it suits the two of us, and our lifestyle.”

It’s a connecting path, sometimes shop, gathering place, place to eat, source of heat, and so much more. Our house is of an open design, with few interior walls, and the kitchen has a prime position. It takes up a third of the front, south facing windowed section. Our workshop/studio gets the other 2/3. We designed and built our house to meet our needs and desires, with no thought to future ‘resale value’ or conventionality. Which makes it a fun and satisfying place in which to work and live. No room is ’set in stone’, and all get used for whatever needs are at hand.

What do I like best about this fluid, comfortable spot? Everything, I guess. After 20 years, I can’t think of anything I would change. Maybe some doors or curtains on the upper storage shelves to keep the sawdust and dustbunnies at bay, but we’ll get to that someday. Meantime, the open arrangement is rather convenient. I like the plain, oiled, pine floors and generous wood counters. A large window in the corner opens for ventilation. An old wood cookstove provides heat, oven, and cooktop. I wouldn’t want to tackle canning on anything less.

A lowered counter area of 30 inches high turned out to be a great idea. It’s perfect for kneading bread and many other chores and projects. It allows a spot for the hand grinders to be clamped to the adjacent 36-inch sink counter. And it’s a nice height to set heavy canning kettles or carboys of wine without having to lift them up higher. Above are shelves of dishes.

Perpendicular to the low counter is a long 36-inch high counter/shelf unit that runs across the ‘back’ of the kitchen. This simply constructed wood unit divides the lower kitchen area from the adjacent upper library/office area (two steps up to the main central room, then another step into the office). The bottom shelves hold pots and pans and canning equipment and stuff. An easy-to-make cotton curtain, hemmed and strung on a wire, keeps things hidden and clean. The curtains add a bit of colour to the kitchen as well.

On the upper shelves can be found jars of herbs, teas, spices and dried foods. Kitchen counters and shelves don’t have to be difficult. Simple works great. The top open shelf of this unit finds an ever changing use-winter squash curing, jugs of juice becoming wine, papers to be sorted, cats on the lookout who are not supposed to jump down on the lower counters.

The long shelf unit counter holds an array of jars and canisters of beans and flours and corn and other good stuff. The main food supplies stay in the cool pantry at the back of the house, but it’s nice to keep small amounts handy and nearby.

Then there is the kitchen table. Not a fancy unit by any means, just an old, painted, drop leaf wooden unit that has seen many years of use, and shows it. But the top is flat and level. Being right next to our workshop it is handy and gets used as an additional workbench. And it is, of course, the prime gathering spot for friends and visitors who don’t care about the flat and level, but do appreciate the warmth and the view.

Then there are the front window sills. The entire south side of our underground house is windows, and in the kitchen section we built generous 16-inch sills on the inside. This is a great spot for putting the early seed pots and flats of plants, when the unheated greenhouse is still pretty cold. Though there is 12 feet of window sill in the kitchen, I found I needed (wanted) more, so we built an additional 16-inch counter extension next to the window sill, with braces angled back to the wall to avoid additional legs on the floor. In addition to plant starting, these sills and counters also find use as a dry, sunny spot for garden harvests and workshop projects, for raising bread, lounging cats, and piling stuff.

Our house is of a post and beam design, and we make good use of both posts and beams in the kitchen. One large wooden post is home to an array of hanging utensils, pan lids, colanders. Overhead, along one 4×12 rafter, can be found hanging mugs and pans. Along another is an array of often-used baskets. Some multicolored dry corn decorates a third (which started out to be just a place to dry the best ears of a long ago crop, but I ended up leaving a number of the ears just for the beauty). A changing array of other odds and ends adorn the rafters and beams at different times. Right now a cotton string bag of glad bulbs hangs within eye level (so I don’t forget them) as they get a finish drying-off before being stored in the pantry.

We discovered the utility of hanging mugs and pans from the ceiling when we lived in our cabin, where the area for ‘kitchen’ was definitely on the small side. An easy rack was made by pounding through good sized nails along a length of nice looking 1×2. Use pliers or vice-grips to bend the nails to fit your mug or pan handles. Then screw the board to ceiling or rafter. We liked this arrangement so much we simply took the board down and moved it to the house when we moved.

But our kitchen doesn’t end in this one room. In fact, we do a lot of our cooking

elsewhere. In the summer, we make good use of an outdoor solar oven. For busy homesteaders, this can’t be beat. I’m not much for spending time fussing about food, so the quick, easy, and healthy appeals to me. And there’s no reason to suffer in the quality area either. Stick in a pan of beans, add some vegetables later, some rice in another pan, aim toward the sun, eat a finished meal later. When the sun is shining, from April to October, the solar oven is cooking. And heating water.

In October most of our cooking moves to the wood heating stove, which is right around the corner from the kitchen cookstove. As the kitchen and living rooms are ‘divided’ only by two steps, it is convenient and easy to cook in the living room. Whenever the woodstove is going, there is usually a pot of something or other cooking, along with the usual water kettle. This is an arrangement we planned and wouldn’t want to do without. We have a soapstone heating stove with a nice, open, flat top so cooking on it is easy.

I can also bake on the heating stove, though I usually get the cookstove going for most of the periodic baking of bread and cookies. Because of the nature of the soapstone stove, the heat is gentle and doesn’t get the stove-top oven quite hot enough for baking loaves of bread. But it’s perfect for flat bread or small amounts of biscuits and such. Ours is a home-made unit Steve made from sheet steel to fit the top of our stove.

We haven’t many of the appliances and gadgets found in many kitchens, of which I am thankful. Man-made things tend to wear me down, and often seem more a burden than a help, though there are many tools and equipment in our lives I much appreciate. We have two hand cranked flour grinders and they work fine. One because it was built to work well, one because Steve spent the time to make it usable. I consider them good exercise, and use them for grinding corn, oatmeal, herbs, and such. But our workhorse is our Retsel mill that grinds our wheat. Located in the shop area, and outfitted with a 12 volt motor (to run directly off our 12 volt battery system), it noisily but steadily makes fresh whole wheat flour whenever I need it, without my having to stop and take the time to grind it by hand. We’ve done that, and with a good hand mill it’s not an unreasonable job. But I appreciate the electric option.