day three with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

This is the third in a series about my days spent with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition back in October.  This post can stand alone, but the other ones are pretty cool.  Here are the preceding parts: day one and day two.

As I said on my previous day, it was for Day 3 I decided to pick a different shift.  My goal was to have a lot less standing around and a lot more doing.  I mean, that's why I was volunteering, right?  So I got a very SMALL taste of what my husband's submarine life was like.  And by that I mean that I had a 6-hour shift and then 12 hours 'off' and then a 6-hour shift again.  On Day 2 I finished at 6pm and woke up at 5am to get there at 6am the next morning.  Obviously doing this for ONE day was a lot better than doing it for 180 DAYS.  At least I didn't have to sleep under my coffee table.  Yeah, I don't think I'm cut out to be a submariner.

Anyway, once I arrived it was still dark out.  And there was nobody manning that sign-in table.  No numbers waiting to be called, no formalities.  My altered shirt that worked so great in the Florida noontime the previous day wasn't quite cutting it for me this particular morning.  I was cold!  So I grabbed the smallest shirt on the table (size XXL, I believe?) and threw it on over my other one.  Much better, except now I was wearing a Muumuu.

Since there was no one telling me I couldn't go down there, I went straight for the house.  There were some other friendly volunteer faces that I recognized, standing around waiting for something to do.  The skilled labor was busily working in and on the house.  We soon got asked to move some bricks and devised an easy system for doing so, finishing in no time.  After that, we were all called over by some bigwig or another and told we were taking a "field trip."  We were gonna go help renovate a gym!  Hooray!  And the gym was only a few miles up the road, so that was a nice bonus.

The basic premise of why we were renovating a gym is that the guy the house was being built for was being given a job at this gym.  You'll have to watch the episode to get all the ins and outs of why -- I do know that they were moving him to Pensacola from a farther-away town because the city donated the land.  Anyway, all that to say we got to go move a bunch of beams, roll up some floors, and jump in the foam pit!

If I ever did that during my gymnastics heyday, you can rest assured it wasn't intentional.

Gymnastics was my activity of choice during my elementary school days, so this gym brought back loads of memories.  It took every ounce of willpower not to jump up on the bars and start swinging to see if I still "had it" (my guess is not).  I also learned just how complex a gym floor is!  We took up the top three layers, down to the wood.  There were springs underneath that and who knows what else.  The gym owner was there along with a few employees, and we got to talking and I learned that a gym floor costs over $10,000!  (A mental note has now been made to not whine about the cost of a future child's gymnastics lessons.)

The wood part of the floor, which is underneath a bunch of foam and at least one layer of carpet

We did everything the gym owners wanted us to do, and we were done by 9am.  (Yes, our crew was alive, alert, awake, enthusiastic, to say the least!)  Around then, a guy from the show crew told us that the film crew would be coming at 10, so we just had to sit around and wait (ugh!).  The worst part of the waiting is that I was HUNGRY.  I'd eaten some cereal at 5am, but that wasn't cutting it at 9.  The show guy had said that the crew would bring food, so I was crossing my fingers.   What was really awful was that I KNEW there were doughnuts at the other site because there were always extra ones around that I saw during the afternoon shifts.  I had bummed a ride to the gym.  If I hadn't done that, I would've hopped in my car during our wait, drove back to the site, and snagged a few boxes.  I'm sure they wouldn't have been missed.

Besides my hunger-induced crankiness, the rest of the day was gold.  We sat around and watched a morning talk show while waiting for the crew, and one of the young guys laid in the foam pit.  When the crew showed, we carried some tables for them, setting up the place to eat lunch.  But, um, NO FOOD.  Not even one measly doughnut.  Gahhh.  I soon saw on-screen talent Johnny Littlefield, so I pretty much knew we were about to get put to work with no food in sight.

We were given Santa hats for our construction helmets once again (although during our actual work in the gym, we definitely did not wear the hats!).  We also got out the gym's assortment of Christmas decor and were told to "stampede" into the gym carrying our decorations.  We had to do it about three times, and it was actually pretty fun!

Me with my holiday gear.  Not sure if the hat stayed up during the stampede!

We then did a couple more shots helping out around the gym - unloading wood, cleaning mats, carrying stuff, etc.  They did actually need more help, but by that point it was past noon and my stomach had some fightin' words for me.  I had planned on a six-hour shift anyway, so I called it quittin' time.  A lot of people stayed, and they hopefully got fed a nice meal.  Before I officially walked out, I made sure to get this:

Johnny Littlefield and me!

I never got to see the fully renovated gym, so I'll be watching this Sunday night (Dec. 12) to see it!  Oh, and to look for myself, OF COURSE.  I'll be blogging some myths busted and tips and tricks for volunteering later this week to lead up the episode's premiere.  And next week after it has aired, I'll hopefully be able to post some screen shots of my pretty little face on national television!

day two with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

This is a continuation of the account of my three days spent on the set of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  You should probably read about the first day first, which you can find here.

So on the second day, I showed up at the same time as the first, right before noon.  There were a lot more people this day, and I noticed that the tent had switched to handing out numbers instead of calling names.  Just another day at the DMV, it seemed.

The morning of I had decided to alter my giant shirt down to make it fit.  I did it really quickly and realized I had lost my bobbin cover, but hey, it fit.  When I got up the counter to get my number, the volunteer coordinator asked me if I had a shirt.  I replied, "Yeah, I'm wearing it."  Then I added, "I made it fit" to a few chuckles from nearby volunteers drowning in their size-XL's.

My "fitted" shirt and I in front of the house on Day 2

Since there were more people and still not too much need for unskilled labor, we waited around A LOT.  It took over 45 minutes just to get our numbers called to go to the site.  But once we got down there, only a few people were needed for something.  The gals I found myself with were a few I had met the day before and they were determined to resume their post as lunch-servers.  I followed them to the cafeteria/warehouse thing, where we found a group of other ladies taking labels off of water bottles.  We immediately joined in the fun.

No free advertising for you, Wal-Mart!

Why water bottle labels?  Well, I'm pretty sure the water bottles given to all the workers and talent on site were donated, but not by the actual company who produced them.  Most of them were Wal-Mart's Great Value brand, and we needed to take off all the labels as to not give them a free plug on television.  So armed with a plastic butter knife, there we we found ourselves with a task.  It was also the cause of my only casualty from this EM:HE adventure.  On my second bottle, before I had really worked out a system, I cut my thumb with my plastic knife and drew blood!

My "construction" casualty, a day later.

Since there were quite a few of us, we finished the water bottles pretty quickly.  And I wasn't one of the "chosen ones" to serve lunch, so I got sent out to the "sit around and wait" tent.  We were all getting pretty frustrated because they had us waiting for quite a while.  I decided then to come back for the early morning shift (6am) the next day so that maybe I'd actually get to DO something.  But it was during this time that I met an Army guy who told me about how his aunt was the recipient of the previous extreme home built in Mobile by Heritage Homes and EM:HE.  He missed all of it due to boot camp, but it was nice to chat with him and hear how it really did help his aunt.  And she hasn't had to sell it because she couldn't afford taxes on it, which is one of the biggest criticisms of what this show does.  He mentioned their "multimedia" room with like 6 flat-screen TV's a few times, so it's apparently still impressive a few years later.

After waiting around for a while, seeing neighbors walk by with their "Neighbor" lanyard badges and giving water to the goose next door, we were all called to go up the street and participate in "the Braveheart March."  We were so excited about this!  And on our way up, we got some pretty good views of Ty standing next to the bus shouting into his megaphone.  I have a hunch I heard him talking to a different family - I'm pretty sure they tape more than one show simultaneously and he travels back and forth.

Holy cow, it's Tyyyyyy!

Gotta love the megaphone!

As for "the Braveheart March," we were handed Santa hats to put on over our construction helmets (Christmas special, that's us!) and led farther up the street.  The director in charge of our crowd gave us pretty explicit directions about not looking at the camera and cheering and stampeding and not having our cameras out to take pictures of Ty.  He also had this ridiculous Boston accent and was trying his darndest at a Southern one.  And failing miserably.  Until someone told him to say the words "sweet ass tea," which he really enjoyed repeating.

We did the March twice, and the highlight of the first one was watching this refrigerator of a woman firefighter completely BITE THE DUST as she tripped on a root going down the small hill we all had to run down.  I knew she was a tough woman, and her firefighter friends helped her up (I knew my 110-pound frame was helpless in this situation), and all I could do was laugh.  She was laughing too, I promise!  I'm pretty sure that's gonna end up on the cutting room floor, but I hope the editors enjoy it.

The firefighters being cute with their Santa-hat-helmets

After we marched down to a certain area, we were instructed to form a "doughnut" around the 4 members of the design team.  While we were in this formation, Ty did a few of his "Ty cam" scenes where he "talks" to the family on their vacation and lets them know what's going on.  The "Ty cam" is a real handheld video cam, and yes it was on, but not for all of it.  And I'm almost 100% positive it wasn't being live-fed to the family (in Disney World for the week), the way it is portrayed to be happening on the show.

In the scenes we filmed, the one I remember the most was when Ty had the people who nominated the family speak out why they did.  It really was just as heart-warming as it is on TV!  (I didn't expect this at all because there's a lot going on in the background during shooting and everything just seems so . . . staged.)  But I think Ty really did sorta choke up as touching things were said about a family that nobody else in the crowd really knew.  It was also nice having all 4 members of the Design Team in one place, because I think that was the only time that happened (not sure who was there for the reveal since we didn't go).  It took us over 3 hours to get all those scenes, and it was definitely quittin' time by the time we were done.  But I did get a good picture of Tracy on my way out!

She's really pretty when she's not making this face

Be on the lookout soon for my account of the third (and best) day of my adventure with EM:HE Pensacola.

day one with Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

I had the great fortune last week to volunteer on the site for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.  You know the one, the ABC Sunday night TV show starring every lady's favorite carpenter, Ty Pennington.

I found out they were coming to Pensacola about a month ago, so I did some digging and found out how to volunteer (which, in all honesty, should just be "walk up" but I did actually get to sign up for some shifts through the builder).  I would call Heritage Homes the real champion behind the family.  They really did provide everything from skilled laborers to volunteer coordinators to donating materials and getting the community involved. 

Since Heritage Homes had done an Extreme Makeover home in Mobile a few years ago, I was expecting a really well-oiled machine.  But while they had worked out some kinks I'm sure, there was still a lot of rumors flying, miscommunication among various volunteer coordinators, and volunteers standing around waiting for something to do (namely, ME).

They really do keep the build a secret until the last possible moment.  From what I could tell, the family knows they're "in the running" but they don't know they're the chosen ones until Ty comes a-knockin'.  Which is kind of hard when you're a volunteer because you don't know where you've signed up to go until the day before (or the day of, for some folks).  The builder's Facebook wall was seriously exploding with speculations and rumors of the locale on the day of the announcement.  I was slightly paranoid it would be over an hour's drive for three days of volunteering.  But it turned out closer than I expected, so that was nice.

Here's just a blow-by-blow account of Day 1:

The first day I showed up I had to sign both a liability waiver and an image release form.  We waited around in the check-in tent for a bit, and then they finally called about six names.  Once my name was called, I was handed a way-too-big blue t-shirt and a white hard hat.  Then we were led down a path toward the house.  I'm no stranger to a construction site; I spent my year in AmeriCorps working with Habitat for Humanity on a site every day.

It was technically still Day 1 of the build, and the foundation had been laid at 4am that day (with apparently a special quick-drying kind of concrete).  When I saw it at noon the whole house was already framed with treated OSB on the exterior walls and trusses being taken up to the roof.  [There was no demolition for this episode.]  Even though during my AmeriCorps stint I had actually built a house in a week at a build-a-thon in Gulfport to help after Katrina/Rita leveled the place, this kind of pace blew my mind.  In the 5 days I spent in Gulfport, we only finished the exterior, siding roof, nothing on the inside but the studs for the walls.  So I have to hand it to the pros here--this is amazingly quick!

This was actually taken the next day, but you get the point

Once we were brought down to the site, we were told to go to yet another white tent and stay there until someone gave us something to do.  After about 10 minutes, a woman working on the site came over looking for water.  We had none.  Just some tables and some chairs.  Eventually, a guy came by asking for "one or two mechanically-minded people who can read directions."  Another gal named Eva and I jumped at the chance to actually do something.  He took us back to a shed not too far from our tent, and asked us to set up some industrial lights.  We opened up the boxes and soon realized we actually needed some tools (namely, a wrench and possibly a screwdriver).  So the guy went on and found someone's toolbag.  We got our wrenches, but a Phillips-head screwdriver was nowhere to be found.  We improvised with a pretty tiny flathead, and we had those lights together within the half-hour.  They looked like this:

Not the hardest thing I've ever put together

When we emerged triumphant from the shed, the rest of the people in our tent were gone, and we saw them on site pulling nails out of 2-by-4's (so the pieces could be re-used).  They were kinda crowded over there, so my new buddy and I decided to stay away and were soon handed a bucket and told to just go around the house and pick up trash. That took no more than 20 minutes, and then we decided to walk around the whole scene and take it all in.  We found the VIP tent (which we were not invited to) and a bunch of stuff going on at a formerly-abandoned warehouse across the street (the house being built was on a corner across from a sewage lift station in one direction and this warehouse in the other - no wonder the county donated the land!).  We stumbled into a makeshift cafeteria, where we saw lots of people eating lunch, including the guy who had asked us to build the lights.  He told us he had forgotten about us back there.  How nice.

We got to eat some lunch there (thank God, because I had forgotten and was starting to get hungry) and grab some ice cream.  All the food was donated, so thank you to the local businesses!  We left the cafeteria, and saw some volunteers we recognized from earlier.  They were standing on the other side of the warehouse in front of the other entrance.  The big Extreme Makeover bus was pulling around the site into the area.  It was a pretty cool sight.  People were starting to come off of it, and of course we just stood there looking for the TV stars.  We saw Michael and Tracy walk by, and Michael smiling the whole time (yes he smiled at ME!).  By standing there, we eventually all got to help set up their green room in the warehouse.  It was all junk food, I kid you not.

the infamous BUS!

We eventually saw Ty get out of a pickup truck, and I tried to take some crappy pictures on my phone while making a mental note to bring make sure my real camera was in my pants pocket the next day.

We did a lot of odd jobs for the rest of the time - including decorating the design tent for Christmas!  Yes, it was October but you gotta film this stuff early!  I somehow ended up in the house very briefly while Michael was doing a spiel.  They told me to pretend like I was measuring, but the measuring tape in the room didn't even have TAPE in it.  So I held up a board and pretended to be busy.  And then a bunch of us carried wood from one side of the house to the other and then BACK a few times as filming continued.  When this episode airs in December, I'll make sure to let you know if I see myself!

Also taken the following day - it's Michael's profile and the back of Tracy

Mind you, this was all Day 1.  The next two days were actually MUCH better from a "this is what I did today" perspective--and hopefully not nearly as LENGTHY, so tune in later for my account of the Bravehart March and other fun stuff!