# One acre "homestead" near Madison WI



## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

We are getting our house ready to list for sale, but if you are hoping for some room to garden/farm/whatever in the Madison area, drop me a line. We could both save money by skipping the realtors. We are planning to move later this summer, definitely by August. We're going to list the property probably next week.

The property is at 102 Winston Way in Waunakee, WI 53597. The image on Google maps is a couple of years old--it shows the raised bed garden and the solar hot water, but not the new landscaping in the front and the new roof.

Waunakee is just north of Madison and is a great place to live, with excellent schools. We live close to the middle school, high school, village library, one of the elementary schools and the intermediate school--easy walking distance to all of these.

Waunakee doesn't have clear rules on poultry, but we have kept hens here for over ten years (never any roosters). We have had between 6 and 14 hens in our generous chicken "room" (quite secure in a much larger structure) and large pen. We have extensive edible landscaping, with three apple trees, a peach tree, a pie cherry tree, a paw-paw tree (with tiny green fruit for the first time this year!), maybe a dozen blueberries, raspberries, hardy "Prime-Jim" blackberries, a blackcurrant bush, jerusalem artichokes in abundance, asparagus and winecap stropharia mushrooms spreading throughout the yards of wood chips I trucked into a shady part of the property. 

We have a big formal raised bed garden, with the beds made of 2' x 2' concrete patio blocks on end--the most comfortable gardening ever!. There are 4 beds made like this, each L shaped and 3' wide, 9' long (18' total, sort of). You can see it on the satellite photo linked above. The inner L shaped beds are about 2' tall and built of black locust. We also have 3 more typical raised beds, each 4' x 12', that are just made of boards, and every year I use the large area in the "back back" for pumpkins, sweet corn, sprawling tomatoes and edamame. The only chemical we've used on our property in over a decade is occasionally some glyphosphate. The soil here started out pretty good and has become simply amazing.

This is a two level ranch home with an open floor plan. We have made many improvements to the property, and planned to live in it forever. We installed a geothermal heating and cooling system last summer, solar hot water several years ago, a whole house fan a few years back and a new roof just this spring. 

There are three bedrooms and two baths up, one bedroom and one bath down. The master bath and downstairs bath have showers, the second upstairs bathroom has a new oversized tub as well as a shower. 

The lower level is a walkout basement, with a south facing sliding door providing plenty of light, and substantial windows in most rooms. Half is finished (family room, bedroom/office, bathroom) and about half is unfinished (big wood shop, pottery area, laundry room, lots of storage). 

The kitchen is huge, with the original oak cabinets. It and the main living area have hardwood flooring that we just got refinished. The non-master bedrooms have hardwood flooring that we installed a few years ago. 

When we put in the geothermal HVAC they drilled four 150' deep wells in our front yard, and we took that as an opportunity to completely relandscape. Formecology did the rockwork and we did the earthmoving, putting in a new lawn and over 2000 bulbs and a couple dozen fancy day lilies.

The house has an attached 2 car garage and in the back is a 45 foot by 45 foot outbuilding. Yes, it's an airplane hangar--we are on the Waunakee airstrip. No worries about noise--a couple of Harley motorcycles driving by make more noise, and for longer, than a little 4-seater Cessna taking off. Most days there are no planes at all--most of the pilots are retired dudes who fly on sunny Saturdays in good weather only. Being on the "airport" is how this typical looking ranch home has a one acre lot. We have a really nice guy currently paying us to store his airplane in the hangar, and he doesn't mind all of our stuff in there as well.

What I love about our house is that you see it from the street and think "Oh, that's a nice house." Then when you walk in the front door you think "This is bigger than I thought." Finally, when you walk through the living room and look out the south facing windows you think "Wow!"

I will post pictures once I've loaded into Photobucket. (Hope that works!)


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

The crabapple in front of the house is simply gorgeous, with beautiful limb structure. It's what you see when you're at the sink in the kitchen. I have a shade garden underneath, with spring bulbs and lots of different hostas. The stone wall and steps are new, installed last summer, so there's now some new room for gardening! The other tree in this picture is a mountain ash. You can see that the "basement" windows are substantial for much of the house.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

This is the formal raised bed kitchen garden in the back yard. You can see the hangar behind: we have resided the north wall and installed three large windows, which makes it a nice thing to look at (much better than the original metal siding)! Not in the picture is our large rain barrel that now sits just to the left of the door (hiding behind a tomato). You might be able to appreciate the large gate, big enough to drive through, between the kitchen garden and the hangar. The main door of the hangar is partially open in this picture: the white panel sticking out will slide into place to close the door, or all of the panels can be turned sideways and slid to the sides in order for an airplane to leave.

Having all the windows in the hangar makes it a much more enjoyable space to occupy, but it is also wired for power.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

Here are two of the apple trees, and another view of the hangar. The chicken pen is hidden behind those trees, but it does get sun in the morning. On the other side of that fence you can see (newly installed--very sturdy, made of redwood with steel poles) are playing fields for the schools. No neighbors for the chickens! There is a line of spruce trees shielding the pen from view on the west side.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

Here's a picture to give you a feel of the inside of the house. We have nice oak floors and just got them refinished in May. There are lots of south facing windows to take in the view of the gardens and back yard.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

We took out the carpeting and installed this mosaic floor in the three season room. It is primarily south facing and on the east side of the house, next to the kitchen. It has one vent for heating and cooling, but it does get colder than the rest of the house in the winter. This was the "dog room" until recently, and is now the "bunny room." We had a doggy door (now removed) and it was a godsend to have the option to leave the dogs at home if we needed to be gone all day. Inside they had cool floor, soft dry beds and water, but they could go outside any time they wanted. My good LGD, Java, preferred to sleep here so she could keep the hens safe!

What you don't see in this picture is the mud room, between the garage entrance and this space. In there we've installed a large deep sink, for washing produce, and a wide shallow sink on the floor for washing dogs, boots, and whatever. The two sinks share a massive debris trap that is easily accessed from the woodshop in the basement.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

We remodeled the main bathroom, taking out the traditional tub and installing a large soaking tub. It is not a jacuzzi, just a tub with the option to fill it up all the way and soak up to your neck! It sits diagonally, but it's not a triangular tub, so it doesn't take much more water than an extra tub for a shallow bath. There is a shower installed, very nice Grohe brand fixtures.

The tilework was done by the same artisan that did our 3-season room. It extends right up over the ceiling in the bath area, and the floor is done in ceramic tile similar to the other room. We installed a new window with glass block as part of this remodel, and the room is so much nicer with natural light.

You can see my indoors clothes line in this picture (right now with a pink scrubby hanging from it). That board has three eye hooks, on the other side of the tub is a contraption with three retractable lines in it. You just pull out as many as you need and attach them to the hook on the other side. Good for all sorts of uses, especially if things are drippy. (We have another interior clothesline, downstairs right next to the washer/dryer, extending all the way across the space with a pulley system for easy use.)


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## RiverPines (Dec 12, 2006)

Its really pretty but chickens are not allowed in Waunakee.
Dogs and cats are limited to a combo of 3.
Here is the Waunakee website with a lot of info.
http://www.vil.waunakee.wi.us/index.aspx?NID=487
"Are chickens allowed to be kept within the Village limits?
It is unlawful to keep chickens within the Village of Waunakee limits."
Permits info: http://www.waunakee.com/index.aspx?NID=165


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

Hmmm, it appears that things have changed since 2000, which is when I spent some time trying to find out what was permitted in Waunakee. At that time, there was just something about "animal units per acre," and I figured that our (almost) one acre plot could support a few hens. We checked first with both neighbors (we really only have neighbors on either side on Winston Way, and our lot goes so far back that there is no one at all near the hangar) and they were fine with it.

Over the past dozen years, most of our neighbors found out about our hens and nobody expressed any concerns. We are right on the border of the village, so maybe that makes a difference.

It's too late to turn me in--I've already found a new home for our hens!


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

Back in the day, before they headed for the hills. 

They look kinda shifty-eyed, don't they?


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

The rain garden went in back in 2001--we have a lot of the water from the house directed there, and in the case of extreme rain events there is a culvert that drains into there as well.

The peonies were put in just a couple years ago, up away from the water collection area. Later in the summer you'll see Joe-Pye weed and other cool natives. In this picture you can see the border of day lilies (fancy daylilies with pink and purple flowers) and a whole lot of, um, I think it's called mountain mint. The structure in the back there is the dig pit we built for our GSD when he was a puppy back in 2000. It was just designed as a place where he was encouraged to dig--I would hide toys in the composty mulch in there.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

As it moves into summer, the hostas get bigger and the bulbs fade away. The big pale hosta on the right becomes HUGE. It is named "Sum and Substance," and it is well named.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

Paw paw flowers are beautiful! I'm told they don't smell good, but I guess I didn't get close enough. Nothing strong.

The cool thing is that now this tree has little green fruits--for the first time. I don't know how they got pollinated--the other paw paw tree barely made it through last winter, and didn't flower.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

A couple of years ago we obtained some fancy flooring: tigerwood and hard maple from our local hardware store when it went out of business. We used it to replace the carpet in both the girls' bedrooms. This is the smaller of the bedrooms. It has a mural of flowers that we put in before it was used as a nursery. I took this picture right after the floor was put in, but before the trim was replaced.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

This is the larger of the two bedrooms, again right after the new floor went in, but before the trim was replaced. The tigerwood is really lovely--we are using it to trim out the remodeled bathroom (pictured above). It is a tropical hardwood, like teak it is water resistant.


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

My husband might kill me for posting this, but it's the widest angle view of our very large kitchen that I could find. I will try to clean it up and get a better picture! This kitchen has oodles of storage and a very nice layout. We put in a big stainless steel kitchen sink with a small sink on the left, with the garbage disposal, and a BIG sink on the right, big enough to lay a cookie sheet flat. We also put in a very nice Grohe faucet (we have a bunch of Grohe fixtures, now that I think of it).

It's funny, when we bought the house in 2000 we told each other "we'll remodel this kitchen someday" and we never did, other than replacing the sink, faucet, dishwasher, stove/range, vent and refrigerator. The kitchen works so well, all it really needs is new cabinet doors and counter surfaces. (Oh, and new trim over the windows!)


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

There, all cleaned up! The stove is by Bosch, and if I could take it with me, I would. I LOVE that stove. The flat surface is easy to clean, and each burner has 9 heat levels, with two burners having multiple sizes available. There is a spot for every one of my pans, and low/slow cooking is a breeze. The oven does convection baking, convection roasting and even dehydrating--I don't use my counter top dehydrator any more for things like drying tomatoes. It has a proofing setting which will warm the oven to 90 degrees, and basically you can get that oven to be any temp between 90 and 500 degrees, in 5 degree increments. The range vent is by Broan, and it actually works. It vents to the outdoors, and it's not so horribly noisy that you never want to run it. The refrigerator is a GE Profile, with the freezer on the bottom. It is less than a year old.

If there is a theme for our house it is FUNCTION. We have spent money (often a lot of money) on things that work for us. (Not so much on cosmetic things, like the granite counters that are so popular with the home flippers in Portland.)


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## Julia Winter (Jun 25, 2013)

The bathroom for the master bedroom has an improved shower: a giant shower head that rises up higher than average, with custom built copper pipes by my (very tall) husband. Other than that, it's pretty much your basic bathroom, with generous storage space.


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