Although Ken did build his house – so did Kevin – there’s so much more to building a house than just putting up a foundation and walls with a roof. Although Vicki is very industrious and a large contributing part to the marriage, the house displays mostly Ken’s personality. He’s got a very dry sense of humor and even though we threatened to kill each other when we were younger, we are very fond of each other now. I truly cherish the time I spend with him (even when he’s trying to bluff me in the family poker game :-)). They live in an isolated area out of Sandpoint, with Forest Service land bordering their property and it’s not uncommon to see deer, bear, cougar, etc., on their land. These were traveling through when Dan and I stopped after the Kootenai Falls Adventure – and Ken has a picture of 40 or more at once roaming through their property.

The house has a daylight basement and Ken has most of the basement staked off as his property. He’s a builder, a wood carver, a hunter, and a lot more. He built their whole damn house, including these cabinets:

The hallway that leads to Ken’s domain – yes, he also shot the bears (they ate them too). I asked Vicki to stand by one for a true understanding of size.

Ken has other trophies downstairs, note that at the top of this one, carved into the wood, it reads “bambi is dead”. And the second one has the cougar skull mounted with deer antlers around it.

There are deer antlers every where. And these big mouth bass trophies adorn the wall upstairs – Ken did the taxidermy work.

Ken does a lot of wood carving. The deer is close to three feet tall and all out of one piece of wood. This piece is sold to someone and it’s waiting to be picked up.

All of these are his work – unfortunately the elk lost one side of his antlers due to breakage:

The grouse is all one piece, including the feet on the limb, and is over a foot tall; the grizzly is about 10 inches high.

Ken is a true woodsman, living off the land, making use of everything mother nature has to offer, and quite the sarcastic little wit. Love him with all my heart, in this shot he’s in the middle of emphasizing a point – and he can get downright damn vocal at times. *smile*

A house is only a house until you build it with you inside.