CORAL — The smell of burning wood fills the living room as thin candlelight licks at shadows in the dimly lit home of Angela and Matt Kuncaitis.

The couple’s heads, and those of their six children, bow in prayer before dinner as a cookstove hisses quietly.

On this cold recent night, snow has blanketed the family’s two-story farmhouse. But inside there is warmth — not from electricity, but from the labor of a family feeding wood-burning stoves.

In 2008, the Kuncaitises decided to leave their home near Zeeland and fulfill a dream of going off the grid, living without power in an old Amish farmhouse in Coral, about 35 miles north of Grand Rapids.

“Our family talked about how we could even be a closer-knit family with the world spinning so fast,” said Angela Kuncaitis, the mother of Abagale 18, Anna 15, Buddy 14, Penny 10, Peter, 4 and Favour 2. “The experience has been very rewarding as we have had to work as a team 100 percent.”

The family was featured in The Press in October, and many readers wondered how the family would cope through the winter in their uninsulated home.

Running their farm, Maple Valley, keeps all hands busy. And they’ve learned that living without power in the winter brings its own challenges.

The home is heated by two stoves: one in the kitchen, also used for cooking, and another in the living room. The family cuts the wood on their 40 acres throughout the year and supplements heating needs with purchased wood. They stack logs about every two weeks.

At night, a portable Leacock pressure lamp provides light, alongside several kerosene lamps and candles.

Zeeland Family Lives Off the Grid 15 Gallery: Zeeland Family Lives Off the Grid

Angela wears an elastic band with an attached headlamp to illuminate the kitchen as she cooks dinner, and later to read at bedtime. The bluish beam is powered by batteries, which are charged in the family’s cars.

“We definitely have benefited from a lack of technology,” Angela said. “We are not opposed to technology whatsoever ... We want to use technology as a tool, rather than it running our lives. We read a lot and play games. We do have a smart phone.”

Sleeping close together with heavy blankets helps keep the family warm at night. Peter and Favour are put down in their parents’ room downstairs, because it is completely dark upstairs and they are not allowed to be alone with the oil lamps. After falling asleep, they are carried upstairs, where the four girls sleep in one room and the two boys sleep in another.

“I think the hardships have been that it has aged us a little,” Angela said of their agrarian lifestyle. “Hard work never hurts anyone, but I do believe it shows on a body and a person.”

Last winter, she was diagnosed with a heart condition, pericarditis, as a result of the H1N1 flu. Because of Angela’s health, the family is planning to add electricity, to power a washer and dryer.

But they don’t expect to stray too far into the age of modern comforts. They still plan to continue heating with wood.

E-mail the author of this story: localnews@grpress.com