10 Years Ago: An Idea Forms

This is Part 2 to our series documenting the early days of Oakleaf Cottage. Find Part One here: https://oakleafcottage.com/blog-and-events/post/seeing-oakleaf-first-time

So... we were under contract. Doing all the fun mundane things that anyone who has bought a home before has had the joy of doing -- 2 years tax returns, 2 months pay stubs, 2 months bank statements, 2 months credit card statements blah blah blah.

We didn't quite know what to do with the property. We simply fell in love with it. I've always said you can always do SOMETHING with land, but this land is kinda sorta all slope.

One morning, I spoke to a coworker about it, and showed her photos on my phone. "Why don't you make it a wedding venue?" she asked brightly. "I think it would do well." That former coworker was Hillary Moore, of Wandermoore Photo -- a wedding photographer who is a staple here. At the time, I knew she did photography professionally, but I did not know much else. "But I don't know anything about weddings," I half-protested. Within moments, Hillary had pulled up images of a barn venue out in Texas. "You could do something like this," she said. "I think you should try it."

And so we considered it. I dove into studying all I could about wedding venues and weddings themselves. We are both creatives, and work best while reearching and thining on our own first, then bouncing ideas off of each other, then working out more details individually, then back to discussing and bouncing ideas. We worked out sketches, and tried to figure out budgets. Our biggest hurdle: money. Most wedding venues seemed to start with people who had at least 1M to invest. We didn't have anywhere near that. Could we get started as a vacation rental and work our way toward a venue over time?

Then one evening, our tenant who had been in our former, beloved home in Georgia called us. Her life had changed, she had to cancel her lease, and had moved out.

And so the discussion of funds took a new turn. We could sell that house, and it might be enough to roughly renovate the barn. If we were careful. We are good at being frugal, and I swear Dave can make or fix anything. But that would now be two income-producing properties we were selling to invest in this one. That too, carried concerns.

With our old home vacated, we started cleaning our old house back up. This fell disproportionately on Dave, as I could only be there on weekends. The house was infested with fleas, needed to be repainted, some of the flooring was damaged, the deck needed to be redone... the punch list went on and on. But I had good photos from back when I was trying to start an interior design blog, and so we pretty quickly listed it as a "for sale by owner."

Meanwhile, our closing date on what was to become Oakleaf was set for Monday June 20, the Summer Solstice, the first full moon on a summer solstice in decades. This last happened in 1967 and will not happen again until 2062. I hadn't known that until I was listening to the radio on my way to work that morning. It felt like a sign.

Closing itself was quick and painless, minus cramping hands from signing that giant stack of papers. After I came home from work, we hastily grabbed supplies for making dinner, a bottle of our favorite wine, a few random dishes, something to sleep on, and our three dogs and headed over the mountain -- a 45 minute drive -- to stay at this new, magical place for the night.

Some part of me knew this place would have a name after that first night. We lay on our makeshift (and highly uncomfortable) bed, our three dogs all snuggled around us, the sound of crickets and barred owls calling to each other, the full moon peeking between the branches outdoors. There were no window coverings to interrupt that view, and the dappled moonlight fell gently on us and our sleeping pups.

In the morning, I was up early, a little stiff from our "bed" -- we had grabbed the outdoor sofa cushions and held them together with a bottom sheet. It was as uncomfortable as it sounds, and the sheet didn't have near the strength to hold several cushions together. Somehow, the dogs were still sleeping, even the young one. I crept downstairs and made coffee. Barefoot, I padded around the outside of the house, toward the barn, partway down the driveway, thinking and listening, waiting. I sat on the rock steps that looked like fairies had installed it -- covered in moss, unevenly placed, a little slippery, surrounded by a wild garden of weeds, irises, and nonblooming daylilies. There was a giant Oakleaf Hyndrangea near the driveway, and several Silverback Hydrangeas all around. My gaze traveled up, up the trees, and noted the first I saw was an Oak.

My eye landed again on the sweet little house. What could we call it? Not a cabin. Not a bungalow. A Cottage.

It came in a flash.

Oakleaf Cottage.

I turned it over in my mind a few times. Was "Oakleaf" unorignal?

I did a quick search.

If you've ever started a business, you know getting the URL you want is impossible. Chances are, any word combination has already been purchased by some "investor" just waiting for you to want it. But here it was, available. Like, NO WAY. I checked Instagram. I checked ga.gov for registered names. Quite a few Oakleaf something or other's, but no other "Oakleaf Cottage." The only thing that evenutally came up was a Southern Living article about an adorable little house in Florida designed by an architect named C. Brandon Ingham... which I noticed a few years later had a new name, as Oakleaf Farm. I guess our venue may have buried it a bit. Sorry about that. https://www.cbrandoningram.com/houses/completed/oakleaf-farm/ By the way, that cottage design is stellar. Actually, the whole portfolio of work is the stuff of dreams. Can we talk someday?

So now, we needed our old house to close, and our buyer was turning out to be difficult. She didn't seem to trust us. Or maybe she was scared to be purchasing without a real estate agent. But either way, we started to have our doubts that we would actually close in July.

We were staying nights at Oakleaf maybe half the time as we began work (more on that in the next post) -- and as I got ready for work the morning of the scheduled closing, Dave and I were talking about our concerns and re-hashing some of the unkind things that had been said to us. He reminded me though, that we could find another buyer if this fell through. With that in mind, and still feeling nervous about the day, I opened the front door to go to work.

Lying on the doorstep, as neatly as if it were placed, was a pristine Oak leaf.

Everything was going to be ok.

That leaf is our logo.

In my career I have spent hundreds of hours agonizing over logos, fonts, creative designs... ours was done in 5 minutes. I visualized the design as I drove to work. I've never looked back. Never questioned it. Never felt like it was boring, or that I hated the font or maybe the leaf should be turned another way or...

Maybe the place liked its new name, too.

Next up: Designing Oakleaf Cottage