A house in Richmond

Last weekend I flew up to Baltimore and then drove down to Richmond with my dad and brother to help my other brother move from his apartment to his newly-purchased house. (Purchased may be a strong word, since he's worked out that the bank owns all but about four floorboards.) After hitting crazy traffic on I-95, we finally made it to Richmond and got our first grand tour of the house.

It is actually not a bad place, but it suffers from an overdose of "little-old-lady" decor. It has institutional green walls in many of the rooms, vintage 1960s light fixtures, customized switch plates, and flowered contact paper on the kitchen cabinets. But overall it is in pretty good condition, and with some paint and minor remodeling it has real potential. It even has a back yard with a large shed that functions as a workshop -- I'm a bit jealous of that!

We spent the better part of two days trekking back and forth between the apartment and the house, lugging all of my brother's earthly possessions from one place to another. (I helped him move into his apartment in 2001, so I've done this drill before.) We finished up the moving on Sunday afternoon, and then focused on important moving tasks: we left the shower curtain for later, but got the Playstation working right away. (This was my first time playing Grand Theft Auto Vice City, and I think I'm hooked!

That evening, my brother and I went out shopping and bought another window air conditioner. While we were gone, my Mom arrived from DC to see the house. Since none of us were in any shape to eat out, we got carry-out fried chicken for dinner. We then traipsed back to Maryland around midnight.

  

   

  

More pics...

Photos

Top Left: Our first look at the house.

Top Right: Daniel shows off his empty living room. This is the before picture -- after much grunting and perspiration it looked like the picture in the bottom row.

Middle Left: Dad and Patrick carrying an easy chair. Well, half of one anyway. Hopefully it was supposed to come apart that way!

Middle Right: One of many architectural details in the house. Every switch plate and light fixture is different. Note the green paint -- the photo doesn't do it justice.

Lower Left: Patrick carries Daniel's giraffe into the house. When we were little, our grandfather made one of these wooden giraffes for each of us, and we had them in our rooms growing up. Mine is still in the attic at home, but my brother took his with him to Richmond. I'm not sure quite where it ended up in the house.

Lower Right: Dad views the carnage in the new living room, while the cat begins exploring. We set her free from her cardboard carrier just in time -- she was making pretty good progress clawing her way out!