Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Justin and Kylie Hicken, Wizard of Odz and Ends
At a glance: Justin and Kylie Hicken moved from Georgia to Kylie’s family homestead in Kansas and launched a kitchen and bath design and renovation business called Wizard of Odz and Ends. They are now using virtual reality and renovating homes locally while designing houses for customers across the nation.
More information: Ron Wilson, rwilson@ksu.edu, 785-532-7690
Photos: Ron Wilson | Justin and Kylie Hicken
Website: Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
July 1, 2026
By Ron Wilson, director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University
The homeowner puts on a pair of virtual reality goggles. She sees a digital image of how the rooms in her home might be redesigned. That’s remarkable technology, utilized by an innovative couple living in rural Kansas.
Justin and Kylie Hicken are founders of an innovative home improvement company named Wizard of Odz and Ends. They live on the Dickinson County homestead that has been in Kylie’s family for six generations.
At right: Justin and Kylie Hicken | Download this photo
Kylie’s father became an airline pilot and moved back east where Kylie grew up. After doing missionary work, Kylie came back to her parent’s home in Florida where she met and married Justin.
As a kid, Justin found he had a natural inclination as a handyman. He worked in construction and for a kitchen and bath company before joining a design-build firm. He was working at the corporate level and the couple was living in the Atlanta area when Kylie’s grandmother passed away.
“Grandma passed in November 2014 and there was no one in the immediate family to take over the farm,” Kylie said. “We came for the funeral, prayed about it, and decided this is where God wants us to be,” she said.
At the time, they had three children, age 5 and younger.
While in Georgia, they began thinking about a name for a potential Kansas business. They wanted a Kansas-themed name that would be flexible for the future and chose Wizard of Odz and Ends.
In 2015, they moved to the family farmstead. It is seven miles north of Abilene and northeast of the rural community of Talmage, population 78 people. Now, that’s rural.
The Hickens launched their kitchen and bath design and renovation business under the name Wizard of Odz and Ends. Justin does physical work and Kylie does design.
Business grew to the point that they were needing to build a shop and display space. “We were dragging people down to our sketchy basement to show them samples,” Justin Hicken said with a smile.
In 2017, a severe storm hit. A microburst destroyed their barn across the road. “Within 30 minutes, neighbors were here bringing food, trimming trees, and dropping off equipment to help,” Kylie said.
“I knew we were in a wonderful place.”
That incident created the space for them to build a new shop and display facility. They incorporated original beams and salvaged tin into the new building. “It hearkens back to the fact that our ancestors made their life here,” Kylie said.
The new showroom opened in 2018 and has enabled the business to reach another level, showcasing Justin’s craftsmanship and Kylie’s design talents. “We want our customers to have the very best, and we try to make it fun,” she said.
One of their innovations is a virtual reality system through which customers can don goggles and visualize Kylie’s designs as they would appear in their own homes. Kylie is now doing e-design work for homeowners across the nation.
“After hurricane season in Florida, she’ll design whole spaces for family home renovations without ever setting foot in them, and she’s doing it from the middle of a wheat field in Kansas,” Justin said.
“The American dream is alive and well,” Kylie said. “You can travel to the big cities, but we always want to come back here.”
When they first moved to Kansas, her little boy asked if they had police here.
”Of course, why do you ask?” Kylie said.
“Because I don’t hear the sirens every night,” her son said.
“It’s not like we were in a bad neighborhood in the Atlanta suburbs, but it’s an amazing feeling to come back here to where our kids can grow up in safety. You can’t put a price on that,” she said.
“We love living here and we love running a business here,” Kylie said.
For more information, see www.wizardofodzandends.com.
With virtual reality and cutting edge e-design, remodeling customers can visualize their new dream home designs – even from rural Kansas. We salute Kylie and Justin Hicken for making a difference with craftsmanship and innovation.
Some views may be virtual, but the results are reality.
Audio and text files of Kansas Profiles are available at www.huckboydinstitute.org/kansas-profiles. For more information about the Huck Boyd Institute, interested persons can visit www.huckboydinstitute.org.
***
K‑State Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the wellbeing of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county extension offices statewide. Its headquarters is on the K‑State campus in Manhattan. For more information, visit www.ksre.ksu.edu. K-State Extension is an equal opportunity provider and employer.