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Writer Sadeqa Johnson in her Charter Colony home. Johnson enlisted designer and friend Angela Wilson Lee to design built-ins for books and keepsakes. “I have to have books around,” she says. “They’re my friends.”
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At their wedding, Sadeqa and Glenn were fortunate to have a jumping broom made by her maternal grandmother. “She always made favors and frilly things like that.”
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Wilson Lee also designed the Johnsons’ fireplace, choosing glass tiles in shades of brown and purple. The family loves to relax by the fireplace and enjoy its warmth.
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“This makes my heart feel happy,” Johnson says of the stained-glass window in the bathroom. “I went to Catholic school, and when we were looking at the house ... it made me feel at home.”
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This table and its twin belonged to Johnson’s paternal grandmother. “They were in her house, and I don’t really have a place for them, but I need to have them here.”
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“This was the first piece of real, solid furniture we bought here,” Johnson says of the table from Greenfront in Farmville. “When family from Philadelphia comes down, I can get 12 people around it.”
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Johnson tries to meditate daily, and she always has her Buddha with her when she does. On it hang beaded bracelets that she and her kids have made for each other, and one from her grandmother.
In 2015, writer Sadeqa Johnson and her husband, Glenn, decided to make a move. They’d been living hectic lives in a dense New Jersey environment for years and, with three children, felt they needed more room to roam. “I just wanted a little bit of peace. I wanted to slow down,” she says.
The Johnsons targeted Richmond and found a spacious home in Midlothian’s Charter Colony neighborhood. Tucked in a quiet cul-de-sac, the house offers room to breathe and enjoy time at home — five bedrooms, cozy spaces for kids to hang out, and a tree-shaded yard big enough for volleyball, a trampoline and a soccer goal.
While the children are at school, Glenn works at his new insurance business, and Johnson writes at home. A former public relations professional in New York — clients included J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame — now she’s working on her third novel about women in different situations and relationships. Inspired by a family trip to the Richmond Slave Trail, her new book is about “a slave woman’s decision to survive by loving her master and staying with him for the betterment of her life and children, even while her soul burns to be with someone else.”
“I really love working at home,” Johnson says. “I prefer to write in my office, mostly. Sometimes I write on my laptop at the kitchen table so that I can let the dog lay under my feet.” With a flexible schedule, she’s able to help at Glenn’s office and stay on call for the kids. “I can be in the middle of writing a very juicy scene when a kid calls me from school needing a change of clothing or a forgotten Chromebook, and I have to stop what I’m doing and deliver it.” She also finds time to meditate at home and teach a workshop occasionally at writing haven Life in 10 Minutes.
Quiet suburbia has turned out to be just what the Johnsons hoped for. There’s room to breathe, and neighbors are friendly. “When we were first here and I walked the kids to the school bus stop, I liked that everyone spoke. It made my heart swell.”
