CULTURE
Extreme Home Mania!
By Lucy Domino
Sunday night in our household is sniffle time. Whether it’s a one or two hankie night depends on whether it’s a one hour edition of Extreme Home Makeover or a two hour special.
So when I heard the design team was in Chicago to film an episode airing in January, I scoured the net for more information. The hunt for a deserving Chicago family began last February with a casting call at the Westfield Chicago Ridge Mall. After reviewing photos and a home video, the director chose Geno Noyola based on heartfelt letters from the community praising his activities in church and sports programs.
Noyola, a reformed drug addict, has been living with his wife and six children in the attic of his grandmother’s house while trying to rehab his own house down the street at 1544 S. Washtenaw.
The
Noyolas bought the 2-flat in one of the poorest neighborhoods on Chicago’s
west side but fixing a raft of problems including dangerous electrical wiring,
lead paint, asbestos, and a huge rat infestation in the basement proved beyond
their means. Enter the Extreme Home Makeover team and their Chicago partners,
Norcon Construction and Harris Bank.
I missed Thursday’s start of demolition when the blue-shirt crew of hard hats usually comes in swinging to level the place. It was just as well. This wasn’t the usual demo but a typical Chicago “gut rehab” of a 2-flat on a 25 X 100 ft. lot that had to require a lot of creative zoning to turn into a new 3200-sq. ft. home.
Saturday
By the time I got to the construction site on Saturday, the red brick building was just a shell. The construction crew had already laid the foundation to extend the living area 30 feet to the rear, framed-up and insulated its first and second floors, and added a new 3rd-story family room with front and back outdoor decks on top of the building.
Two sky-high cranes were ferrying drywall and air-conditioning units to the top floor. At least 50 workmen were busy in separate areas chipping brick to make new windows, adding brick to build rooftop retaining walls and installing new windows and doors.
The construction site was on a quiet street just a block away east of Douglas Park, one of Chicago’s grand public spaces designed by Jens Jensen. Chicago police blockaded both ends of the street and a private security force monitored iron rail cordons set up along the sidewalk to contain spectators.
Fortunately
– and I’m sure this good fortune had a role in the selection of
the lucky family – there was a school parking lot across the street
that had been transformed into a holding area for TV trucks, make-up trailers,
VIP tents, crew meals and all the other accoutrements that go along with a
network television production.
About 300 other curious Chicagoans were there drawn, as I was, by the possibility of seeing our favorite TV show heroes. As we walked past the staging area, someone just ahead of me saw behind the chain link fence Michael Maloney, the show’s interior decorator.
“There’s Michael!” I said. He looked over and waved, and I beamed ear to ear.
The main activity on Saturday seemed to be pouring concrete on the street to cover a new sewer and water connection. To handle the work, Norcon brought in a spanking-clean new pink cement mixer with logos proudly announcing that Doremus construction (a sub-contractor) was dedicated to breast cancer research. To supervise the cement pouring, Paige Hemmis, another designer, suddenly appeared with a camera crew in a baby blue parka and her signature pink hard hat and pink tool belt.
While I watched enthralled, my husband struck up a conversation with a cop assigned to security.
“So what do you think happens when all this ends?” he asked.
“I think the plasma TV’s will be the first to go,” he said.
Since nothing really happens on TV time, we took advantage of the lull in shooting to walk down the street and look at Grandma’s house. Landscaping crews were busy painting the front porch, installing railings, laying in grass sod and planting shrubs and yellow mums that would make it all look good for the shot. But through the window in the attic where the family had lived, my husband noted that the same decrepit shades were still in place. “Men,” I thought to myself.
Tuesday
I left work early Tuesday, giddy with excitement, to be on Washtenaw again when the family came home. This time, there weren’t 300 spectators but almost 1,000 lined up in rows up and down the street. The famous bus loomed in front of the house. Every other person seemed to be holding aloft a camera or camera cellphone waiting to get a photo of the show designers.
The
first to appear was Michael. He looked marvelous, tan as always and wearing
a black sports jacket and blue jeans. Since we had already bonded, I shouted
out, “How’s it look inside?” He broke into an even wider
grin. “It looks absolutely awesome,” he said, giving me a thumbs
up. Ed Sanders, another designer, soon joined Michael shaking hands and signing
autographs. Then came Paige and Eduardo Xol. All that was missing was the
show’s star, Ty Pennington.
Suddenly, I heard a roar at the end of the street and Ty came running down the lane with his famous megaphone and a cameraman following his every step. He too stopped to chat with a couple girls in the front row then slipped away to wait, like the rest of us, and read over his notes on the family story.
I knew we were getting close when a white van appeared and out stepped Grandma. The cameramen took up their places and one particularly burly crewman shouted, “Okay, nobody gets to cross the street. If someone crosses when the limo is heading our way, they’ll have to back-up and do the shoot over.”
Somehow I expected a band, or a parade, or something.
But the limo transporting the family slipped in quietly with no other warning
but the crewman’s shout. One-by-one, the Noyolas all climbed out –
and the show was on. There was excitement and disbelief in each child’s
eyes. Friends of the eldest daughter Melinda shouted her name. “I’ll
be over this weekend,” one said. The crowd laughed. The youngest child
was this adorable little girl in a pink Old Navy-type hoodie who thrived on
the attention. She walked around the street like she was walking on a red
carpet, smiling
and waving to everyone.
Finally, it was time for us all to do our part. “Are you ready to see your new house?” Ty asked the family. Then he turned to the crowd and we shouted in unison, “Bus driver, move that bus!” Then, because this was TV, the cameramen changed positions and we did it again. And again.
On
the third take, the bus did move and, just like on TV, the family started
crying and hugging each other. The design team came out to join in the hugging.
Then the Norcon construction team came over to greet the family. And through
it all, the little girl in the pink hoodie, kept smiling and waving to the
crowd.
There were a few more ritual presentations before Ty asked again, “Are you ready to see your new house?” The children ran to the front door (twice) giving high fives to the Norcon crew along the way. Once they were in the house, the door shut and the rest remains to be seen when the program airs in mid-January.
And just like I was home on a Sunday evening, I cried and cried. But they were tears of joy for the Noyolas and all of us who, in that one moment, came together as a community.
