"We bought the house to contain the collection," said homeowner Jim Cole. "The furniture was secondary."

Dona Cole remembers one trip to find a new sofa.

"We came back with a stained glass window," said the former art director.

Their collection includes works from artists such as Thornton Dial, Mose Tolliver, Howard Finster and Jimmy Lee Sudduth to name only a few. The couple's collection of outsider/visionary folk art is so extensive that the couple rotates pieces throughout the house from storage to display.

The popularity of vernacular art exploded in the 1980s. Sudduth, of Fayette in northwest Alabama, and Tolliver, of Montgomery, were prominent among a wave of self-taught artists.

Their works are considered building blocks in any private or museum collection.

"It's fortunate we both like the same kind of art — we've never quarreled," Jim Cole said.

Jim Cole, cofounder of Atlanta ad agency Cole Henderson Drake, is a native New Yorker who moved south 40 years ago and met his wife, Dona. They settled in Cobb County, but when they decided to move in 1984, they didn't want to venture too far.

"We walked into this house, and it was immediate," said Jim Cole.

The two-story, four bedroom, 3.5 bath home sits on 2.5 acres in the middle of booming east Cobb. Their neighbors are surrounded by larger acreage to keep that wild feeling.

"We're sort of protected from the other houses," said Dona Cole.

The creative couple has procured outsider and folk art since 1987. They have stopped collecting because the pieces have become so expensive.

"It's out of sight; we can't touch it," Jim Cole said. "I'm glad we started when we did."

They are persistent about their methods. For example, they admired a wooden chair at Raiford Gallery in Roswell, but told the owner it was too expensive.

"So we would go over and look at it," Dona Cole said. Eventually the price was lowered, and they snapped it up.

The 1980 home with its rustic interiors of stone and wood beams comes to life with the colorful and playful art that fills every nook and cranny.

In the living room, a row of wooden whimseys hangs from the mantle. Whimseys are carved from one piece of wood and usually resemble chains or links.

One of Dona Cole's quilts hangs in the living room. A former advertising agency art director, Dona Cole designs and makes her own quilts. Her husband, retired, is a freelance writer and avid reader. The couple built a library upstairs with floor to ceiling bookshelves that still can't contain his collection.

The living room fireplace is grand, spanning five feet across. The windows were salvaged from an old school house. A basket collection of various sizes and types hangs from the ceiling over the living room and kitchen.

The breakfast area is dominated by a scarred wooden table that used to serve as Jim Cole's office desk. The kitchen has Corian counters and a tumbled marble backsplash.

In the nearby sunroom, a tin donkey on the wall was used as a scarecrow at one time. A gallery owner in Buckhead gave it to them when he closed his shop.

Key artwork in the dining room includes a Thornton Dial piece and a Revolutionary War-era buffet. Dona Cole enjoys the look of the dining room.

"I just love this room, I feel like I'm in a plantation," she said.

The piano room, accented with judges paneling, includes a china cabinet that houses handmade fabric peddler dolls crafted by Jim Cole's mother.

The Coles enjoy their life, where wild turkeys and coyotes show up unannounced in the driveway.

"It's always a pleasure to see something around here beyond people," Jim Cole said.

HOUSE HIGHLIGHTS

• The two-story, four-bedroom, 3.5-bath home sits on 2.5 acres in the middle of booming east Cobb.

• Most significant artists in their collection include Thornton Dial, Mose Tolliver, Howard Finster and Jimmy Lee Sudduth.

• Homeowner Jim Cole is cofounder of the ad agency Cole Henderson Drake.