Saving Old Stuff

by DIANE GASPER-O’BRIEN photographyby KELSEY STREMEL

“My dad’s motto was to leave a place better than you found it,” says Kris Munsch, assistant professor of applied technology at Fort Hays State University.

“I never forgot that,” Kris said while relaxing on a couch in the machine shed on his farm in Hays. “It applies to everything in life.”

Kris had to dig deep to continue living up to that philosophy after his 16-year-old son, Blake, died in a vehicle accident in 2005. He cried. He walked around in a daze, in a state of disbelief. His life was shattered. He sold his two local businesses and moved to eastern Kansas.

After hitting rock bottom, Kris started to dig out of his despair. He realized that through Blake’s death, he could help others embrace life. While teaching at Bonner Springs High School, he created The Birdhouse Project for parents who have gone through the loss of a child. The project features a series of questions written on pieces of wood which are used to build a birdhouse. Hundreds of people have found solace by building their own birdhouses.

Even then, though, Kris was still unsettled. So he took off on a year’s retreat from a regular lifestyle, traveling to 48 states alone by car, “to find himself.” After a year on the road, he landed back in Hays, where he wound up teaching in the Department of Applied Technology at FHSU. It seemed like the perfect fit. Building is one of Kris’ first loves, and while always seeking to make a difference, teaching his craft to others is a natural extension of that. Then, settled back into somewhat of a routine, Kris Munsch met his match.

In his spare time, Kris runs his own home inspection business. One day, he was asked to inspect a house in Hays that a spirited entrepreneur-minded woman named Larissa was interested in buying. Kris had never met anyone with quite the same passion for restoring houses as himself.

He told Larissa about a gothic Victorian house he was restoring in Hays, and “I invited myself over to see it,” she said. Kris said he stood on the porch and listened in awe as Larissa talked about restoration ideas – ideas he hadn’t even thought of before.

Who was this spunky woman who is passionate about saving old stuff, and where did she come from, Kris wondered.

It didn’t take him long to find out. They talked for hours. They began spending more and more time with each other, and they soon learned that together they could make a difference – in whatever project they tackled. They were married in 2018 and have restored six houses since.

Thus began the union of saving old stuff, and they are on a mission to make a difference in everything they touch. Kris and Larissa make an ideal team, because they agree to disagree. “Kris says ‘I’d tear this out,’ ” Larissa said, talking about one of their projects. “And I say, ‘No, I’d keep those.’ ”

“Larissa usually wins out,” Kris said. “That girl knows what she’s talking about.”

He’s not the only one who thinks so. Larissa has more than 100,000 followers, national and international, on her Instagram account OldHouseLove. Many popular and well-known restoration folks tag her posts because of her social media presence. The couple also created their own YouTube weekly series, “Saving Old Stuff with Lariss ’N Kris” that focuses on saving old houses, vehicles and animals.

Larissa’s followers got to witness the Munsches participate in one of their largest projects so far when they videoed the move of a two-story Craftsman house 70-some miles from Ness City to their farm on west 27th Street in Hays. They are restoring the house in their spare time while living in a downtown Victorian home they restored together and turned into an Airbnb.

The 1920s Craftsman house was once inhabited by the 29th governor of Kansas, Andrew Schoepple, when he was starting his law career in Ness City. The Munsches dubbed the house, “The Govna,” which they plan to make their home when it is all finished.

“If a house has a name, it has soul,” Larissa said. “And this house definitely has soul.” The Munsches are drawn to the spirit of less fortunate animals. They took in ducks that someone dropped off on the side of the road. A blind pony that was headed to slaughter has a safe home on the Munsch farm along with about 50 other animals of various species.

Larissa, who thought about becoming a veterinarian before following other interests, follows Facebook animal rescue pages to find rescue animals. People drive from far and wide to drop them off – or the Munsches themselves go fetch them from harm. Saving rescue animals, Kris says, helps ground a busy life.

And it is a busy life, with Kris’ teaching responsibilities at FHSU and the couple’s house restoration projects, along with other side businesses. One project that has especially kept Kris on the go is The Sticks Cubed, developed as part of his Birdhouse Project. The Sticks Cubed was designed to help people deal with any kind of loss, whether it be a death, health issues, divorce, loss of a job – anything. Kris has traveled the country presenting to a variety of organizations and schools and annually presents it to students in FHSU’s Death and Dying class.

Kris uses Pick-Up Sticks and a Rubik’s Cube to help people understand their life experiences, how

they got to where they are now and how to move forward, with each stick representing one of those experiences. The cube also represents different aspects of a person’s life, and he talks about how to deal with all sides of the cube.

“If your car breaks down, it’s not that big of deal if you have the tools to fix it,” Kris said. “Personal tragedy is similar. If a person has some tools to help guide them through the aftermath of a tragedy, they can move forward a lot faster.”

Kris can attest to that. After years of struggling with his own uncertainty, he has mastered moving forward, leaving each place he visits better than he found it.