It Takes a Village to Raise a House With ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

This past week, my hometown of Erie has had quite a bit of excitement. That's because the crew of the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to fix up the house of a very deserving woman for the second episode of its seventh season. While I've never watched the series with any regularity, I always catch at least a couple of episodes a season. All have the same basic format: tear down the dilapidated home of a family with an emotional story and rebuild it while demonstrating to the audience why that family, off on an all-expenses paid vacation until it's time for the new house to be dramatically unveiled, is so special. It's ideal Sunday-night fare: family friendly, with a feel-good message that encourages community involvement and induces many viewers to sob into their hankies.

I first heard that EMHE would be coming to Erie a few weeks ago. I was excited, but the news slipped my mind until the announcement of the recipient was made, and when I inquired about volunteering, I learned the show had secured more than enough help. My services would not be needed, which is probably just as well since I'm a walking disaster likely to spill a can of paint all over Paul or drop a hammer on Ty's foot. But I was welcome to observe, so every day I found myself in the neighborhood, watching events unfold from afar, and on two days, I went in for a more up-close and personal look. I stayed for the duration of the Big Reveal yesterday, and if you tune in this September, you might just see me in my black Pooh shirt or my white EMHE shirt, screaming like a maniac.

Seeing the show from this angle gave me a deeper appreciation for what goes into these projects. The local news showed the progress of the house every day, so we watched it go from being torn down to being gloriously rebuilt in a mere week. We laughed about the fact that wherever we went within a mile of the house, we saw people walking around in white hard hats and bright blue EMHE t-shirts. I think I heard that there were more than 1000 volunteers from the community, and the number of spectators, many of whom brought donations of canned goods, books or school supplies, exceeded that. It really got everyone excited about pitching in to better the city, and I hope its effects will be felt well into the future.

Of course, the spectators also went in hopes of laying eyes on the show's celebrity design and construction team. As a bemused observer remarked to me yesterday, host Ty Pennington is the Elvis of home improvement. He's a bundle of energy who doesn't seem capable of sitting still or speaking below a shout, bullhorn in hand. He channels all of that energy into pulling off the incredible feat of building complex, highly personalized homes in just a week's time. Ty's charisma and rugged good looks make him the object of some pretty ardent devotion, and just a glimpse of him in a crowd of fans is likely to elicit a hubbub of ecstatic shrieks. 

Many episodes also include at least one special celebrity guest who is passionate about some element of the project or is a particular favorite of someone in the family; Erie's was singer Mary J. Blige, whose determination to help inner-city youth made her a good fit with Clara Ward, who has opened her heart and home to many children in the neighborhood.

Along with the many volunteers, both everyday folks and construction professionals (like the Maleno family, who were instrumental in the completion of Clara's home), from each city, Ty has a regular team of experts who concentrate on specific areas of each project. Two of them especially stand out to me. Carpenter Paige Hemmis looks like a model, but she wields those power tools with great authority. She signed autographs and posed for several photos in Erie, and she seemed to be very nice. My favorite member of the team is head designer Paul DiMeo, whose thick glasses accentuate a resemblance to Eugene Levy. At some point in just about every episode, nearly everyone significantly involved in the project ends up crying, but Paul tends to wear his emotions on his sleeve even more than the others. His tendency to be deeply touched by the plights of the families they help gave Fred Armisen plenty to work with when he portrayed him on Saturday Night Live in 2005. He also seems especially keen on making himself accessible; I saw him come and go several times yesterday, and he spent quite a while signing autographs for fans. I didn't catch a tear escaping his eye from my vantage point, but I did watch as he cradled a delighted little girl in his arms throughout the last portion of the shoot.

Except for the lucky few who won a tour of the house, we weren't treated to an inside view of Clara's new home. The outside looked amazing, but the most interesting elements of the homes tend to found inside, so we're all looking forward to seeing the finished product in a couple of months. One of the things I love about the show is the effort that goes into making each home tailored as much as possible to the personalities and interests of the people who live there. On the one hand, one might argue that it's unnecessarily extravagant and that the resources should be spread more evenly. Like the rest of the show, there's something a bit over-the-top about amount of detail that goes into these "special projects" and room designs. Nonetheless, I think that Ty and his crew find wonderfully creative ways to incorporate each person's passions into the home design, and watching them at work is inspiration for gift givers everywhere. I also appreciate their efforts to keep things as environmentally conscious as possible, recycling materials and setting up utilities in an eco-friendly manner.

I'm anxious to see my little corner of the world shown off to the rest of the country this fall via this show and interested to see how Erie as a city will be highlighted. I wonder, for instance, if the crew got a chance to go to our picturesque peninsula, Presque Isle, during their visit. Unfortunately, as is typical with Erie, they had some nasty weather to contend with, but Presque Isle can be enjoyed rain or shine. Their stay gave Erie residents an opportunity to show why ours is a city in which we can have pride, a city just as deserving of the adjective "cheery" as the more commonly heard "dreary". As for the rest of the season, I plan to watch the show more regularly, observing as Ty, Paul, Paige and the rest of the hard-working builders complete architectural works of art while introducing us to the beauties of a particular family and a specific community. Long after the original Extreme Makeover ceased to lavish plastic surgeries upon people willing to go to drastic measures to change their appearance, EMHE is still going strong, improving lives one house at a time.

** A Note About the DVD: This particular DVD is a collection of what the producers feel are the best episodes from season one.  On the plus side, reducing the number of episodes reduces the cost; this set, on two discs, is available for $20 on Amazon, which is pretty low for TV on DVD.  Then again, if you were involved with one of the five episodes omitted, I can imagine you would be pretty disappointed.  The families, all from California, featured in this set include the Powers (Santa Clarita), the Woslums (Palmsdale), the Coxes (Simi Valley), the Mendozas (Van Nuys), the Harrises (Watts), the Ziteks (Ventura), the Walswicks (Yorba Linda), the Powells (Arleta) and the Cadigan-Scotts (Livermore).  Celebrity guests include Tommy Lasorda and LeAnn Rimes.  Among the extras are behind-the-scenes features showing more about the building of the houses and the making of the show, so EMHE doesn't have to come to your town for you to get a peek at how they pull off such a feat week after week!