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Utah house in winter

Quirkiness is the new trend in today’s homes: Inside Edition

Watch any home show on HGTV and you will see decorators using today’s hottest trends to remodel, update or create new homes. The only problem is that there isn’t one on the quirkiness of a home and how to embrace it or turn it into the hottest new trend. Where is that show? What Joanna Gaines did for shiplap, I could do for quirkiness. That’s the show I need. I may just have to embrace the quirkiness of our old house. Truthfully, we may have to gut the entire thing and start over. What quirks, you ask? Let’s look at some of the quirkiness things we discovered. But promise me you’ll abide by our farm rule. You are not allowed to ask why things are the way they are. We just don’t have the answers.

Quirkiness or Character

Oxford Languages defines quirk as “characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits.” That would definitely describe our house. However, Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines quirky as “unusual in especially an interesting or appealing way.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/quirky  Our house is interesting but not necessarily appealing. 

Stairs to Quirkiness

Let’s start at the stairs because it’s fascinating to me. At some point, the owner diverted the stairs. According to the last owner, the house was two living units at one time with the stairs running up along the exterior wall of the house. Later, they turned the stairs to come out to its existing spot but left the old stairs. It is currently a closet in what used to be a foyer but then became a bedroom and is now a room in question. Are you following? This spring we are going to open the wall up and see if we like the original route of the stairs.

New stairs going up

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Can you find the water heater?

With everything, I am sure that at the time it was the best option. Now, it just perplexes me. Somehow I didn’t get a great picture of our living room. Our hot-water heater sits in a closet in our living room. Everyone notices it because it’s that quirky. The goal is to relocate it because we want to tear down the adjacent wall. But in order to move the heater, we have to move it to the other side of the wall in what will be the laundry room. To do step C, we have to do steps A and B.

It won’t always be like this, right?

This entire room is full of quirkiness. We will remove the carpet to see what is underneath. The whole back wall needs to be redone. The “bay” window is three different size windows. Behind the curtain is the world’s ugliest sliding glass door. As we understand it, the original kitchen was here which would explain some things. 

back living room
You can see the edge of the hot water heater closet to the left of the couch

While we are in this room, look up. Let’s see if we can get one light for this small room instead of four. It will require moving the fake beams and the ceiling that seems to be lower than the rest of the room. Quirky!

Living room ceiling
These beams are probably decorative. But what is more troublesome is the many light fixtures. This will be rectified once we figure this room out.

Goodbye awkward Sauna

While a sauna sounds like a good idea, we found the one attached to the back of our house to be dangerous. It was close to setting the whole place on fire. The wiring was questionable. And as you can see the only creatures using it were the birds. It was ugly as well and was not appeasing. It had to go.

Goodbye awkward, quirky sauna! It looks so much better.

sauna1

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A better solution for storage in eaves

I appreciate that someone removed the knee walls of the attic to make the bedrooms larger. My quandary is what to do with that space. Thank God for Pinterest and all the amazing ideas I have pinned. https://www.pinterest.com/  

Here is our current situation upstairs in two of the bedrooms.  I have included ideas of what to do with the space.  Also, can you spot the hidden hatch in the floor? That secret storage may very well be the reason the ceiling is so low downstairs. We shall see!

This website has a lot of great ideas as well for building dressers into the space. I really like these ideas for added storage.. https://diyprojects.ideas2live4.com/knee-wall-storage-dresser/

Closets where all the answers to why are stored

We obviously need to rethink this situation. Here is a fine collection of our closets:

upstairs closet. The second smaller door is what was the original attic access

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Windows

We need all new windows but that will be one of the last projects along with exterior work. But this one window is always the subject of dinner conversations. It’s two storm windows used to make one window. You promised not to ask why!

Window
A double-pane window? I don’t think so. ©missykuester.com

Adventures in quirkiness

There is a long list of things that aren’t quite right but this blog only has so much room. I will include and explain the wall we took down in another post.

This can all be fixed. When we change things it gives us a sense of accomplishment. One day this blog will show us how far we’ve come. Thanks for following along and not asking why.

In the meantime, revisit some of my past blogs on Haulin Kuester Acres. https://missykuester.com/renovation-update-outbuildings/ Next time we will talk about the quirks of the outside. 

farm at sunrise with outbuildings

Renovation Update: Outbuildings

This is our next renovation update: outbuildings edition.

One of the things we looked for was a farm that was already established. We are behind many of our peers when it comes to buying a home. Chris has always wanted an orchard, a greenhouse, and a barn. We didn’t want to start at ground zero since we are in our late forties. The best solution for this dilemma was buying an already established homestead. However, it is hard to find such a place.

We liked this particular property because of all the buildings…okay, maybe not all of them, but most of them. The two red barns we really wanted and all the others were a bonus. After inspecting them we realized that many of the buildings were haphazardly built. We decided to start dismantling them right away. It was gratifying to tear down what we considered derelict buildings. All of the outbuildings had electricity which meant we had to carefully disconnect them as well.

A Quonset hut, the cat building, and the new woodshed

outbuildings
Left to right: new woodshed (what we call the garage), the cat building, and the Quonset hut.

Most people only see three outbuildings in the picture above but it’s more like 5. The metal, fake Quonset hut no longer exists. The structure was built using gray, electrical tubing with sheet metal drilled in. Therefore, it was not geometrically correct and bothered those with OCD.

The brown sided cedar building is what we refer to as the cat building. The two doors on the front go to two separate rooms. The door to the left (the glass one), went into a storage area where every wall had floor to ceiling shelves. Door number 2 goes into an area that has a gravel floor. Through that area is a maze to a couple of other pen-like rooms that we were told once held approximately 50 cats. The old owner believed he was saving the cats from being harmed by wild animals.

Finally, the white building to the left is what we refer to as the garage. It has a nice cement floor and is dry. For now, we will keep it and use it as a garden/woodshed. Consequently, we tore down the old woodshed because it was dilapidated and blocking my view of the mountains. One day when we expand off the back of the house, the garage will come down.

Horse visitors welcome

outbuldings4
Magnum inspecting the horse barn.

The back portion of the property is fenced in. We have this horse stable/paddock and we will keep it in case a visitor wants to stop in or a local farmer wants to rent the pasture. It’s not in bad shape, just needs to be cleaned out and around it.

Don’t mind these buildings

outbuildings3
These two buildings will be torn down in the future

These two buildings next to the big red barn are set to be burned/ torn down. Right now, we just haven’t had time. The white building is housing any junk we find on the property. We have already had one dumpster of junk hauled away.

outbuilding6
This building was once a dog shed and we will move it to the back of the property to use as a well/pumphouse

This little building will remain because we will move it to the back of the property and use it as a well house for the pasture water well. Right now the pump to our agricultural well is disconnected because of shoddy craftsmanship that Chris will correct next summer. We can repurpose this shed to shelter that wellhead and pump.

The keepers

The red barn caught Magnum’s eye and was a deciding factor in our purchase. Ultimately, he has always wanted a shop to work in. It is insulated so is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The cement floor, a propane heater, and electricity are all bonuses. In the future, we will have RV hookups next to this barn.

interior of red barn
Interior of the red barn. Heavily insulated.

The faded red barn in the pasture is the Sheep barn. At one time they raised sheep and there is evidence of that in this barn. The barn isn’t very tall and has a rather large metal beam down the middle. The sellers claim is floods but as far as we can see it sits at the highest point on the property. In the meantime, it will be the Jeep barn. Sheep to Jeep barn sounds about right. Right now it houses material we have salvaged from the other buildings.

I have always admired red barns and wanted one. Although I would prefer a wood barn, these will have to do.  Find out more on why barns are typically red, https://www.farmersalmanac.com/barns-painted-red-240

Not sure what the next post will be about but stay turned. There is always a story here.