Battery Park House

Battery Park Flood

2006-09-02T13:23:00.000-07:00

Our house survived the flood just fine, a little bit of water in the basement, and a small leak in the roof.. nothing major. Many parts of the neighborhood did not do as well.

I have many photos up at flickr taken over the last several days.

Backyard Update

2006-05-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

Battery Park gets some ink

2006-05-15T11:45:00.000-07:00

If you read the Richmond Times Dispatch, do check out the article that ran in yesterday's Real Estate section, Battery Park Rediscovered.

...ACORN's showcase of Battery Park, dubbed a Sell-A-Bration, will include presentations by renovation loan specialists, information on tax breaks for buying and renovating in the city plus a tour of homes.

Unfortunately, the online version cheats you out of some really nice pictures of a few of the vacant properties that will be featured in the tour.

Starting to look like a home

2006-05-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

We're now most of the way unpacked and set up. The first floor is starting to look pretty decent. We still need to put down the rugs and hang some more things on the wall. I made curtains for the very first time. That was pretty fun actually.

Farm Report

2006-04-02T18:35:00.000-07:00

One of our new favorite passtimes is trying to figure out what the guy that lives accross the alley is up to.

The most recent concensus was that maybe he's a contractor who does a bit of salvage business on the side. This weekend's events have thrown a new wrinkle into the mystery. He and his pals spent all day Saturday constructing a large crate to attach to the trailor that he keeps in his yard (along with a couple of claw foot tubs, a truck full of random junk, and a tent which is housing some number of unseen treasures). Tonight we heard the unmistakable sound of sheep and lambs bleating. No shit. Sheep and lambs being loaded up into a trailor in a northside Richmond backyard. It's not time for the state fair yet, is it?

Rarely Seen Richmond

2006-03-31T18:44:00.000-08:00

VCU has a wonderful archive of vintage postcards featuring pictures of early 20th century Richmond. You can easily waste a couple of hours of useful time browsing the archives.

Moving sucks

2006-03-29T18:09:00.000-08:00

As everyone knows, moving is a massive pain in the ass. We've been pretty caught up in getting the seemingly unending mountain of stuff out of our old place and into the new place. We've been determined to get rid of loads of useless crap but somehow there's still this amazingly large pile of stuff that we still must move. When you're moving, the old place with all of the stuff sort of becomes this zombie that will not die. Anyway, in a few days we'll be all done and can turn all of our attention to the many things we need to do at the new place.

Housewarming present

2006-03-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

A good friend of ours brought us an awesome housewarming present... some great chairs with matching ice bucket, margarita mixer, glasses, and porch lights for our back porch.

Back fence finished!

2006-03-20T13:07:00.000-08:00

The back gate is finished! Pardon the extra panel in the picture, we haven't moved it yet.

Finally, a refrigerator...

2006-03-16T07:03:00.000-08:00

The theme this week has been appliances. In my fantasy of Sears delivery and installation service, competent, cheerful people arrive with your order and make sure everything is up and running before they leave. If there's a problem or an irregularity, they're prepared to deal with it. The reality fell somewhat short of that. Monday morning we recieve a phone call at 7am informing us that Sears was on the way to the house to deliver the appliances. We don't actually live in the house yet (we've still got a few more days in the old place) so someone had to dash over to the new house to meet the delivery guys. It sucks to have to dash anywhere at 7am but we were excited about getting out stuff so it was okay. Unfortunately they brought the wrong refrigerator and were not able to hook up the vent for the dryer (something about us needing more than just a hole in the wall to attach the flexible tubing to). So my husband arrived home pretty deflated. No fridge and we can't use the dryer until someone fixes the vent.

The next evening we recieved a call from Sears to tell us that our fridge would arrive the following morning but when the guys in the big truck arrived all they had was some more dryer vent tubing for me. Somehow between the previous evening ("your refrigerator will be delivered tomorrow!") and the following morning the refrigerator was now "out of stock".
Shitty.

The happy ending is that this morning (thursday) when I dashed over to the house to meet the Sears guys (who had alerted me they were on the way) there was an honest-to-god refrigerator. The very model we ordered! In the right color, even!

See how easy it is to be delighted with something once your expectations have been so diminished?

Monday I was pissed off at how shitty Sears "delivery and installation" is....today I'm so happy to have my refrigerator that I don't even care anymore.

A good thing to note: If you buy a fridge that needs to hook up to your water system and the fridge isn't going in right next to the sink or dishwasher, Sears will not hook it up. They won't go under the floor to hook up the water line to the closest water pipe (which might be inches away). So "installation" means, basically, they bring it in your house and plug it in. I'm going to have to get a handyman to run the water for me and fix my dryer vent.

Lilac bush

2006-03-13T12:26:00.000-08:00

This lilac bush is the very first thing I've planted in the new yard. Hopefully it will do well. I love the way they smell when they're in bloom.
Part of my strategy for dealing with some loose fence issues along one side of the yard is to plant some stuff there. I'm trying to prevent the dog from getting out under the fence. She's not a digger (anymore) but some of the spots along the chain link fence on one side of the yard are loose enough at the bottom for a person to climb under. The other tactic I'm taking is using some of that green metal edging with the curved stakes to basically stake the bottom of the chain link into the ground. I think it will work, but It won't be very pretty.

Abandoned home...

2006-03-13T12:05:00.000-08:00

I found this sitting right next to the backdoor this weekend:

I don't remember it being there before. It's possible I hadn't noticed it though. But it was right next to the back door, as though it had been put there. Sort of weird, but also interesting too. It's a bird's nest, complete with several unhatched eggs inside. I imagine it was abandonded a long time ago. I hung onto it so I could show it to the kids.

Almost... there...

2006-03-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

The Fence Posts Are Up!

2006-03-11T15:27:00.000-08:00

Another shot of the livingroom

2006-03-10T11:02:00.000-08:00

Pictures of the block

2006-03-10T10:58:00.000-08:00

What happens when kids pick the colors...

2006-03-10T10:54:00.000-08:00

Latest House Progress

2006-03-10T10:50:00.000-08:00

The back fence is down, and the remains of the tree are gone:

Huge cluster of stumps gone, new fence begins

2006-03-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

We've gotten a lot done this week. A good friend of mine helped me paint two of the bedrooms (with only one small setback) and we got rid of that massive, hateful dead tree mess at the back of the yard. My friend and I actually entertained a fantasy that we might be able to demolish some if it on our own. We got big heavy tools. We hacked, smashed, grunted, and cursed...but in the end, the stumps won. So I gave up and called a tree service. I was really scared that it was going to cost a fortune. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't nearly as expensive as I had feared. The stump grinder man came this morning and made it all go away. :) This meant we could begin our new back fence. My stepfather came over and set two of the posts today. The rest will go up on Saturday, then the fence panels on Sunday. I'll try to take some pics of before/after and some "in progress" shots too.

A few more pictures

2006-03-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

A larger picture of the front of the house:

The mysterious crop circle in our back yard, from the back porch. You can also see the stumps left over from the tree that fell and destroyed the back fence that we now get to fix. The back yard is a bit of a project :)

A picture of the back of the house including the great second story back porch:

House pics

2006-02-03T13:59:00.000-08:00

Here's the house we're buying. It's in an older neighborhood, right near Battery Park, where Arthur Ashe learned to play tennis. I'll update this as we make changes to the house. Lord knows, that fence out front has to go. Sledgehammer party!