Welcome Home!

Regular readers know that I refer to my almost-100-year-old house as The Big, Old Scary house. The nickname came about because the house is an old, roomy, no-frills, four-square and it was pretty scary when I moved in two years ago. The roof was leaking. Dogs and cats had left their, um, marks all over the inside of the home. Wiring was sagging and pipes were dripping – and though I’ve made some headway, I’m still facing a list of weekend projects long enough to last through 2010.

The exterior paint was peeling, and neighbors told me drapes had covered the windows for years.

There was no need to make the house scarier for Halloween last year. All I had to do was put out a pumpkin and voila, Halloween at Bates Motel.

I’m convinced all the trick-or-treaters avoided my house because it was too scary, even though it was just dressed up like itself.

Now for this Halloween I can’t call my house scary any longer because the exterior is finally painted.

By the time you read this column the porch lights are shining on bright white walls, and the last wayward splatters have been cleaned off the dark green trim.

Serendipity has always had a way with my life, and it was soon after I purchased the big no-longer-scary house, that I found myself with the assignment to create this Home section.

And now, just in time for Halloween, my house finally looks less like the Bates Motel. It looks almost friendly.

So it’s time to move on to a new project.

At the big no-longer-scary house, I’ll be finishing some interior painting projects.

And here at the paper I’ll move on to a new position as metro columnist, writing about news and politics in the column spot that was recently vacated by Rebecca Nappi.

But I’m leaving Home in good hands: Cheryl-Anne Millsap will take over as editor of this section at the same time as she continues her treasure hunting and other writing projects, and I know she’ll do a wonderful job.

On the lack of trick-or-treaters at my no-longer scary house – maybe I just need to give out full-size candy bars. I’m sure that’ll do the trick.

Happy Halloween.