Cheryl-anne Millsap: Welcome Home!

A home isn’t just bricks and mortar or lumber and nails. Sure that’s how you get a house, but making a home takes a lot more. Creating a real home out of any house calls for more than a blueprint. It takes time and energy; sweat equity and daydreams.

When our children were small, we lived in a city with street after street of beautiful houses. Some were grand and others were tiny cottages. Many of the houses had seen better days. They’d sheltered families, welcomed grandchildren and finally been a refuge for elderly men and women.

Over the years we adopted a number of those houses. We moved our family in and did our best to bring the rooms back to life. For years, with toddlers at my feet or a baby on my hip, I painted, wallpapered and refinished hardwood floors.

We replaced windows and put on more than one new roof. Sometimes we added rooms to fit our growing family.

In the spring we planted roses and each fall we gathered acorns to decorate the table during the holidays.

As we outgrew one house, or fell in love with another project, we moved from one place to another. Often selling to friends or acquaintances, people we saw often in our community.

Over time, people who were once new neighbors turned into old friends, people we still talk to even though we’ve moved more than 2,000 miles away.

Once a year, if possible, we return to our hometown. And each visit includes a tour of former addresses.

A lot of who we are, and who we dreamed we’d be, came about in the places we once called home.

This week in Home

While their friends were traveling or spending weekends at the lake, Anne and Damian Putney were working on the rental homes they’d purchased as a down payment on their future.

A year and a half ago, the couple purchased a battered craftsman-style home on Spokane’s South Hill.

They took time off from their jobs to bring the once grand old structure back to life.

Their story is our cover feature this week.

Pat Munts answers a reader’s question about caring for a storm-damaged tree and gives us tips for growing herbs indoors.

We’ve also got the back story about a prize-winning quilt designer.

We’re on the cusp of a new year and it’s exciting to think about the changes that year will bring. One thing will stay the same: Each week we’ll bring you more stories about people who know that being at home is more than just an address.

It’s a state of mind.