Light & Air
Vanessa Sorrell Burnside
Photos by Emily Wilkins
“With Mr. Jefferson, I conversed at length on the subject of architecture…. He is a great advocate for light and air– as you predicted, he was for giving you octagons.”
– Colonel Issac A. Coles to John Hartwell Cocke, February 23rd, 1816
It may be blue on the outside, but the concept behind that eye-catching octagonal house on Lake Wedowee is very much a green one.
Although the house is only about three years old, the beautiful architectural salvage pieces used throughout have given it an old soul. Owners and designers Kara O’Brien and Paula Rose would have it no other way.
Their Atlanta business, Kara O’ Brien Renovations, has developed a niche in the market by restoring and renovating historic homes using pieces salvaged from other homes destined for the bulldozer. They have also built some homes from scratch using the same principles.
“My basement is salvage central,” joked Kara. Laughing Sun sells pieces and uses pieces, from old doors, to old floors, to mantles, railings, windows, hardware, you name it.
Their home in the Kirkwood community of Atlanta – part Victorian, part Craftsman – was recently featured in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s “Private Quarters.”
Publicity is nothing new to Laughing Sun. Paula and Kara’s work has been showcased not only in the AJC, but also in Atlanta Home Improvement Magazine, Arts and Crafts Homes, This Old House Online, This Old House Magazine, Your Home Magazine, and Atlanta Business Chronicle. (You can read more about Laughing Sun by visiting the website www.laughingsun.com.)
So how do they get their hands on this great stuff before it’s lost forever?
“We have a dumpster diver in Atlanta,” said Kara. Actually, they have a guy who goes to neighborhoods where old houses are being torn down. He approaches the contractor, offering to demolish it for free. Laughing Sun pays him for all the pieces he can get out of the house.
They also acquire pieces online and are regulars at Scott Antique Market in Atlanta. Over time, Laughing Sun has developed friendships with others who save pieces for them.
In their basement are pieces waiting for just the right project. This house and others they work on are like giant puzzles they have to assemble to form one cohesive result. Laughing Sun uses the same contractors in the Altanta area becuase the work they do is still a novel concept.
Surprisingly, all of this success comes from two women who started out in 1997 by reading This Old House Magazine and learning by doing.
Paula has an MBA in marketing and is self-taught at CAD design. Kara’s degree is in English and her previous work experience was doing PR in the entertainment industry. They do work with architects and do a lot of the work themselves, especially toward the end, when finish work really needs a woman’s touch, said Kara.
Work on the octagonal lake house began in 2003. It took approximately a year and a half to build.
She describes the feel as lighter than other homes they’ve worked on, with an open, airy, bright, happy and casual mood. For this project, Kara and Paula stuck with the architecture they really love – Greek Revival and Italianate – and lots and lots of glass.
The mid-1800s was the heyday for octagonal buildings. This home, dubbed Octacello as a play on Thomas Jefferson’s home Monticello, was inspired by one in the Midwest. It took about a year to design and then was redesigned during the building process. The octagonal design requires lots of cuts at an odd 22 1/2″ angle, making it hard to lay out.
“But they laid it out perfectly,” Kara said of her builder.
Laughing Sun brought in some of its usual contractors for some parts of the house and used local contracotrs for other parts.
“We’d been told we’d drive everyone mad,” she laughed.
The flooring of the house came from five or six other houses, and it was challenging to install the downstairs floors in almost a spider web fashion with the medallion at the center. Kara said her flooring contractor, Charley Norton, was afraid he would not be able to please her. “He fired me several times,” she joked.
Located on a peninsula in Sweetwater Point subdivision in the Swagg community, Octacello has water views from every bedroom.
During the building process, Kara began conversing with a man online who was also building an octagonal house, except that he wanted his to be more modern in style. He argues that walls should be placed to make all the rooms square with no odd angles because “You’ll get spiders.” Forget that advice. Kara and Paula enjoy the quirky angles and in many of them stuck built-in cabinets.
After a week spent in Atlanta, Paula, Kara, and daughter Walker try to come to the lake every weekend. Laast year was the first summer with a boat here. They enjoy skiing, riding jet skis and hiking with their two Siberian Huskies. They’ve had small low-key gatherings of friends, and their parents also enjoy using the house, with Kara’s dad hosting his golf buddies to hit the Robert Trent Jones courses.
As one looks around the home at everything that makes it such a jewel on the lake, it’s hard to fathom that all of those things were worthless to someone and were almost destroyed.
Kara said, “All of it was going to the dump in Atlanta. Every bit of it was going to the trash.”
The Turkish glass green-tiled downstairs bathroom has a 19870s Victorian sink and gas light from Ohio, an antique toilet from New York City and an antique medicine cabinet.
There are 21 six-panel doors inside the home that came from five or six Atlanta homes. One of the builders said, "Hey, these are real doors!" and a second replied, "Yeah and they're real heavy!"
Walker enjoys the view on the porch from her swing, custom-made for her by her mother.
Check out The Octagon House page for a virtual tour.
