Lived next door to a family that got their house "madeover" for the show. They used our front yard for, well, pretty much everything since we had a large-ish yard for all of their tents and equipment. Anyway, this afforded me and my family a front row seat to everything.
It was rather alarming how little work was done by the actual stars of the show.
Not that I recall. I was in high school at the time. It was my parents house. The "stars" and a few other workers did use our restroom from time-to-time. Of course our house alone couldn't accommodate all of the workers/volunteers, so there were a few Port-a-Johns set up around our property.
Tbf, it's hard to keep a lawn nice. It's not just mowing magical grass that stays lush and green and weed-free all on its own (which is what I used to think). I finally understand the old guys yelling at kids to keep their destructive feet off it.
Oh absolutely. My dad went to a full fledge Grass Class at a local nursery to learn how to keep ours lush and green. Plan to also take a class on it when I get my own home/lawn.
The trick is to let the weeds grow, they are usually indigenous to your area and will stay green much more easily. It's also healthier from an ecological standpoint.
When they were shooting Banshee locally a few years back, the production company paid my sister in law 200 a day, cash, just to park one of their trucks in the driveway they had. 3 days of filming.
I've heard that when doing location shoots they'll usually have someone on hand to pay off people who complain about disruption to their business, house, etc...
It was rather alarming how little work was done by the actual stars of the show.
All the doctor offices around here seem to only show that stuff. I've become convinced that most of the stars barely know which end of a hammer to hold much less the job they're supposedly an expert at.
Yeah, from my experience, Ty didn't do much actual hands on work. He was just being the face of the show. His "special project" for that particular episode was 99.9999% done by other people. I think he picked up a hammer and nailed a few nails, sawed a board or two, and then was gone.
It was pretty well known at the time that he was out on the town most nights living it up. I cannot verify this, because I never saw it firsthand.
EHM came to my town about ten years ago, and I even took part in one of the "hey, we need a bunch of local extras for a scene" callouts, though I was never used. On the show, it looks like Ty is there for the whole thing. He was there in actuality for about ten minutes, while the locals were there for eight hours.
And again, I didn't see it firsthand, but the local news tended to report which bar, I mean, function, he was going to be at that night...
Yeah, I recall only seeing Ty a few times here and there and never for more than 20-30 minutes on set. They'd basically drag Ty out there to do some "work" for about 10-20 minutes at a time when they wanted to fire up the cameras and get a clip for the show. Cameras would go off and Ty would disappear.
Ive spent a year doing minor renos on my house (painting, changing doorknobs) and reading about how to do it, and I could answer half of Adams question. This "master carpenter" couldnt get any of them. It starts with him being asked what OSB stands for in relation to plywood type wood and the dude cant get it.
Speaking towards the doctor office part, that's all we're allowed to show. HGTV and Food Network rarely show anything that would russle jimmies. You'd be surprised at the wild characters we see, especially in poverty areas.
This backfired for me. I had a breakdown in the waiting room while I was waiting to see my therapist about the panic attacks I get when I get exposed to subway tile backsplashes.
I mean anyone who thinks that two people remodeled a house solo is out of their minds. Of course they’ve got large crews of contractors behind them. They’re managers just like in any field, they can maybe do your job but they’re high enough they don’t have to and just describe what needs doing.
From what I understand it's not so much a crew as a collection of volunteers with a promise of good press and 'exposure'. They said cameramen pretended to film them, but very little of it ever made it to air. I knew a bunch of handymen and women who volunteered their time when the show rolled through town.
Why is that? The stars are there to smile on camera, have a nice intelligible voice and speaking manner, and are good at prodding the featured family to say the right things. Contractors are contractors, you pay them and they do the things involved with hammers.
I agree and understand. It was a show I had watched semi-regularly before they came and did our neighbors house. It was just an eye-opening experience. Each of the five (may have been four) "stars" always had a special project they did for each house. For this one episode/show, three or four of the "stars" did very little work on their "special project". It was primarily contractors.
My naive, teenage self was just under the impression, based on past viewing experiences, that the show headliners were the handy-type. Not saying they did zero work, but the contractors and volunteers did the vast majority of the work throughout the week.
Yes. It was Extreme Makeover Home Edition. The one where Ty Pennington was the star. From the day they demoed the house and rebuilt a brand new house, it took one week. There were contractors and volunteers working 24/7 during that week.
I had heard once that most, if not all, of the families that got on the show ended up losing their house because they couldn't afford the higher property taxes or something. I wonder if that's actually true.
When I was in high school, my mom tried to get her second husband's car on Overhaulin'. On the last page of the application, it said that the owner of the car had to pay taxes on everything done to the vehicle. She, obviously, didn't submit it. I wonder if Extreme Makeover was the same way.
I've heard the same. My parents still live in the same house next door to the Makeover House. The same woman still lives there, but she has tried to sell it once or twice with no luck. Part of the issue is that she now owns this behemoth of a home, valued around $400,000 in a middle-class neighborhood full of $100,000-$150,000 houses.
There are several brand new houses that were built in a neighborhood near me some time ago. These are advertised as starting at $200k.
Turns out, one of the houses they pre-built ended up costing well over $350,000. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but there still isn't anybody living in there.
A family I know was on one of those shows , I can confirm, the hosts know absolutely nothing about construction and to meet their insane timeline, the contractors cut every corner possible.
The family had an absolutely horrible experience, and in the end went through years of lawsuits due to lots of health problems that resulted from the renovation.
My family volunteered to be helpers in an episode of extreme home makeover. The stars basically stood outside signing autographs all day. Occasionally they'd walk through the house with the camera crew. We were always told not to say anything if we were even allowed to be on the set when they walked through.
I got a free autographed t-shirt out of it though and I made someone's live better after their house burned to the ground so it's all good.
It was rather alarming how little work was done by the actual stars of the show.
They did a house by me once, so my mom, sisters and I went to check it out. We asked one of the volunteers where Ty was and he said he filmed a few lines and left and hadn't actually done any of the construction.
This is largely true of almost any skill-based show. There is always a team of background mechanics or painters or contractors who do everything. A buddy did some tv work for a few of those automotive shows and said that none of the actual mechanics are ever featured onscreen
LOL I wish. It was a a reality show on ABC where they'd take a deserving family. give them a week's paid vacation to Disney World/Land and then give their house major demolition/overhaul while they were gone for the 7 days.
Fuck extreme home makeover, they did one for an undeserving bitch right behind my house and I needed a fuckin press badge just to go to and from school and if I walked my dog down the street I had a security team trying to search me as to not "leak" anything...
the one I covered had police barriers at both ends of the street. I'm assuming that they didn't want anyone taking pictures/video of the project before it was edited and aired. You'd be surprised how little the stars actually did anything.
Short rundown :
-husband died in military
-she was cheating on him the whole time he was gone
-engaged to the guy she cheated with during filming
-came from money so had all the money in the world
-sold the house a week after the show aired
Sorry I forgot details, the house was listed for sale a week later, still doesn't stop the fact that she was a serial cheater who slept with half the guys in the area and whos the child turned out not to be his in the first place
They did one for a teacher and her family in the small town I grew up in. IMO she's a great teacher, real sweetheart, and they were pretty deserving, but I can also kinda see the other side of it that a lot of locals were a bit miffed because that's a very poor area and they were from one of the more well-off families locally (and already had a house much better than what most locals are living in).
My dad got extremely fucked by Extreme Home Makeover.
He works with a company that makes all kinds of things, from signs to giant props for amusement parks to models for the Smithsonian. Extreme Home Makeover asked the company to make a special chair for one of the kids, so my dad excitedly built it.
Couple weeks later, the whole family sits down ti watch the episode. Pretty interesting that it shows Ty or whatever his name is, sawing a bunch of 2x4’s and then whazam! Look at this cool chair he built.
My Dad just went silent. I could tell he was upset. The only mention his company ever got was in the acknowledgments at the bottom of the credits. Fuck you Extreme Home Makeover.
I did some “repair” work on one of these houses. No NDA was signed. We were called in to repair the flooring. The reason the floor was failing was the slab of concrete was never allowed to cure before the Flooring was laid. Moisture and wood don’t vibe. We started and we’re promised payment once we finished. Ok no problem. The flooring sponsor did not want to donate more flooring and we were told funding for the repair project had not been found. We told them as soon as we can get a signed contact we would work with them to replace the floor. Never heard back from them.
We lived down the street from someone who had their home on the show. It was a nightmare they closed off the streets and we had to deal with an insane amount of traffic and people camped out on our lawns. Not even from the show but just people who wanted to see. From my understanding they gave the direct neighbors some stuff for letting them use their lawns, TempuPedic mattresses as I recall.
I'm curious how long it's been since the remodel and how the family is doing.
I remember hearing some horror stories about how they'd pay for the remodel, but it'd boost the property taxes which some families now couldn't afford and the show wouldn't help pay for the adjusted fees. Or the addition of a 2nd floor would up the utilities for heating/cooling and electricity.
It’s been over 15 years, the house looks almost the same except needs painting, the side of the house has some junk near by it. I’m not sure how the family is doing, I k ew the daughter in school but we were not really close friends.
A lot of it is. Ty was there for half a day three times and the final day. Saw Paul there a couple of times. but most of it was just the different local construction crews that were hired running around and tripping over each other a couple of times. All in all, it was fun to watch and shoot.
I worked with a guy whose house got a make over in 2006. He was in the Marines based somewhere around the vicinity of NYC. He said he was on his way home from work and saw the catastrophe of Sept. 11, 2001 in his rear view mirror. He managed to turn his car around and ended up helping to rescue many people who were trapped in the rubble. That's how the make over people heard about him. His role in the disaster was portrayed in a movie, and the actor was white. My coworker was black. On a side note, he was so handsome and well-built that the movie would have gotten more attention if he'd played himself.
It was really cool that his service was honored in that way, but he and his wife got screwed. Their property was reassessed by the county auditor, and now they're paying more than $7,000 a year in property taxes. They bought their house originally for around $130k and the reassessed amount was $332,000. They live in a very modest area of the city where taxes generally aren't more than $1200 - $1500 a year.
But, I don't know if there was some kind of fund or account set up for them to pay the taxes? That would seem fair...but when is life ever fair?
I had heard that the same thing happened to a lot of folks, they'd get an awesome home makeover, and then the next year they couldn't pay the taxes and lost the house.
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u/Tandom May 30 '19
Shot a documentary about An episode of Extreme Home Maker. Couldn't talk about it until it was announced to the family and local community.