On Location: Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Project 511

A local woman and her family were chosen as the recipients of a complete home makeover by Extreme Makeover, so the kids and I went over there this morning to help "Move That Bus!". You can find out more about it at this website http://www.greenextremehomemakeover.com/ where they have before, during, and after photographs.

Spectators were being shuttled from a nearby city park with buses chartered by ABC. N. and I actually went up last night to check it out (we spied Ty through one of the upstairs windows!), but there wasn't a lot going on, and we were freezing cold. This morning we were shuttled up to the location at around 8:30, and already they were saying the Bus Scene was being delayed another 30 minutes. By 9am they were saying 11am, but things actually got moving before then. The kids and I weren't in a great location. We were packed in about 3 or 4 people deep on the sidewalk across the street from the house, with many holding umbrellas as we stood in a light off-and-on drizzle waiting for something - ANYTHING - to happen.

The crowd of spectators:

We had some celebrity sightings. First we saw Pauli (saw him last night, too, but didn't have my camera). He was nice, and turned to give all of us a big smile (though he moved quick and mostly I got shots of his back, LOL). Then we saw Ty, who finally appeased the cries of "Ty! Ty! Ty! Ty!" from all the teen girls in the crowd, and got goofy with the spectators. Then I saw Michael standing in the driveway of the house. He also waved and smiled to the crowd.

Paulie:


Ty:


Michael:


There were a lot of people standing in the spectator area who had volunteered to help out during the week. I overheard that the house itself is ready to move into, but that there will still be 2-3 weeks more work to be done. Still, not bad for razing a house to the ground, and then building it back up again in just over week (granted, they work 24/day during that time). I cannot believe what that neighborhood has had to put up with. There are streets blocked off, they've got cars, trucks, trailers, flood lights, generators, porta potties, garbage dumpsters, and more, parked in the yards of people's homes. I assume ABC will be paying for someone to come out and re-sod most of these yards, and I hope the families were appropriately compensated for their trouble. The house itself seems nice from the street - not too pretentious or anything. It's a "green" home (you can read more about that at the link up top), which basically means it rates high for energy efficiency, both inside and out.

This is the view looking up the street towards the EMHE house:




Here's the view of the front of the house, and the architectural drawing (oriented as you see it from the street):




Being a spectator was amusing. The crew works to get everybody pumped up, excited, and loud, but what we don't realize when we're watching from home on tv is that the crowd is pretending to yell for a bus that isn't there, and a design team that isn't actually coming out of the front door of the house, or a limo that has driven down the street fifteen times already. There is a lot of editing that happens on that show. They definitely got footage of N. twice - once when she was shouting "Move That Bus!" and once when we were doing the general "Whoooooooo!" while waving, clapping, and jumping up and down. So now we'll have to be sure to watch it when it airs (rumor has it that will be in January).

The limo with the EMHE logo taped over the license plate:


Getting the crowd pumped up:


A. was getting tired and ready to go, so I finally had to tear N. away from the hoopla. Little did I know, they'd decided not to run the shuttles back down to the park while any of the filming was going on. Faced with either hoofing it back a couple miles, or going back and making A. stand in a loud crowd of people, I decided we could start walking while I tried to reach hubby by cell phone. He obviously couldn't drop everything and leave work to bail us out, but a very nice lady who was returning to her car parked close by offered to give us a lift back. I took her up on her generous offer, and the kids and I were back to our van and driving off to the local Starbucks for warm beverages in no time!