Living simple means freedom, according to Ben Masters.
He and his wife Katie Haunstein live in a 600-square-foot, off-the-grid home in Marysville.
“Small but not quite tiny,” Masters said.
Surrounded by meadows on an utterly charming piece of property, with the song of the red-winged blackbird coming from the tall grass, the acreage has a “Little House on the Prairie” feel.
“We wanted it to be big enough that we wouldn’t ever feel that we needed to add on, but small enough that it would be easy to maintain and not become a place that we just filled up with unnecessary things,” Haunstein said. “We also didn’t want a home so expensive that we would have to work for the rest of our lives to pay it off.”
This small, off-the-grid living is much more about intentionality than the stereotype of dogged independence, criticism of modern amenities, or a desire to sequester oneself from the “outside world.” It has the typical amenities—electricity from a six-panel solar system, septic system for sewer, and propane for cooking and heating water.
When the weather doesn’t cooperate, the couple taps power from their lithium phosphate batteries. That’s a huge improvement from the lead-acid batteries they once relied on, which don’t store as much electricity.
“We’re living the good life now,” Masters said.
With physical space at a premium, thoughtful purchases are a requirement.
“Living in a smaller-than-average house also keeps us mindful of what we buy, what we have,” Haunstein said. “There’s not a lot of room for excess stuff.”
The home uses every inch efficiently, but is lovely. The kitchen, with its wooden live-edge countertop, holds an efficiency-sized refrigerator and oven. Rather than traditional cabinets, Ball jars on shelves store oats, flour, sugar and the like. Books line the shelves up the steps towards the loft. The full bath is small but well appointed, with a stained glass piece depicting a scene from Peru decorating the sink.
The couple’s two stints in the Peace Corps, Zambia and Peru, had them considering an even more meager lifestyle—a thatched roof with mud-brick walls wasn’t entirely out of the question. However, “a lot of the building techniques they use abroad we couldn’t use,” Masters said.
Also, living within a town came with certain rules.
Masters said that they talked with the Perry County commissioners about a composting toilet rather than septic system, but that was a no-go. They had also considered using salvaged barn beams as the structure for the house, but getting approval would have been costly.
Masters said that, even with all the regulations, the municipality was willing to work with their desire to be off the grid.
“We came in with some wacky ideas, and they said ‘Let’s dial it back, but there’s some wiggle room,’” Masters said.
They relied on local Amish builders to create the hemlock mortise-and-tenon structure, but the rest was a labor of love. The couple cut, planed and joined the rough-cut walnut, cherry, oak and hickory boards that make up the flooring, building about 80% of the home themselves.
They also chop all the wood that heats their home in the winter. The structural insulated panels provide terrific insulation, which keeps the house cozy during the cold months with minimal wood usage.
“For me, it’s like anything I look at, I can remember doing it,” Masters said. “That’s a rewarding feeling.”
There’s plenty to do outside, too. Haunstein handles the gardening and chickens.
“I love to garden,” she said. “It is a place that calms and grounds me, genuinely makes me happy. The yearly cycle of growth and new life is inspiring.”
Blackberry and raspberry bushes line the house’s front fence. The garden holds strawberries, cilantro and chives topped with purple globe blossoms. The summer will add a plethora of veggies. Pear, cherry, peach and apple trees round out the agrarian variety.
Haunstein doesn’t intend to grow all of their food, just enough organic produce to eat fresh through the growing season and some to “put up” for the winter.
The couple funds their lifestyle through each of their home-based small businesses, as well as Haunstein’s job as a massage therapy instructor at HACC. She has a massage studio in their loft, and Masters re-creates bike cranks into wall-art clocks in his basement workshop for his “Crank Therapy” Etsy page. He also dabbles in sewing wallets and small bags from bicycle tubes, using a bicycle-operated sewing machine.
“I wanted to do something I enjoyed,” he said.
Masters described their life as “homestead light.”
“My hope is that we can be an inspiration for someone to live a little more simply, with a little bit less, and a little more in tune with the world around them—and to know that it doesn’t have to be an extreme jump to go off the grid,” Haunstein said. “You can just take one small step in a new direction.”
For more information on Crank Therapy designs, visit www.etsy.com/market/crank_therapy.
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