Fallen Oak Cottage: One Year Later

One year ago, we purchased our next long-term project: Fallen Oak Cottage. Cottage is a bit of a generous term. It’s more like a glorified shack.

It won’t always be. We have big plans for this tiny little house and the gorgeous piece of lakeside property on which she sits. But truthfully, the work has been slow.

When we purchased the property last March, we were at the beginning of a townhouse renovation and knew once that was completed that several things at our own cottage needed addressing before we could get to that project. The townhouse took roughly three months to renovate. We listed it in June, a sort of sensitive time in the housing market, and ended up sitting under contract for nearly seven months, effectively tying our hands with Fallen Oak Cottage.

In the new year, with the townhouse project officially completed, we turned our attention to a few projects really needing our attention at our own little cottage.

But last month, ready to officially get started, we contracted with a company to clean out the property. Fallen Oak Cottage got its name from the giant oak tree that fell prior to our purchase. The tree took out the entire drain field system and entirely swallowed up the back yard.

During the clean-up, the company unearthed a few old cast iron relics (and loads of other things) from the twisted pile of tree. After cleaning everything out, they graded it and left us with the stunning view we knew existed all along.

But right around the time the property clean-up began in earnest, a big opportunity related to the cottage structure on the property sort of fell into our lap. The magnitude and scope of this opportunity has left us quietly working behind the scenes for much of the last month attempting to make this happen. But it also means, while we sort everything out, that our visible, tangible work to Fallen Oak is once again on hold.

We promise what we are working to bring to fruition is so good. It’s inspiring, and epic in those once-in-a-lifetime sort of ways.

We hope that you’ll stay tuned. While our work may seem slow to you, The pieces of the behind-the-scenes puzzle are falling into place steadily and meticulously so that we can bring you along for the next phase of this exciting project.