Behind the scenes: 'Extreme Makeover'
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The limo delivered Lucy Ali and her sons, Kuran and Paul,
to a cheering crowd - mostly neighbors leaning over traffic barricades - in
front of the family's newly remodeled South Ozone Park home.
Hidden from the Alis' sight, behind a double-decker bus, was not only the
house, but the people responsible for the renovation. The stars of ABC's
"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
No, no, not Ty Pennington, the California carpenter-surfer-model. And not
Paige Hemmis, his pig-tailed sidekick with the low-riding pink tool belt.
No, the real stars of the segment that will air next month were nearly 150
strong - carpenters and electricians and plumbers and painters with calloused
hands, sweat-drenched blue T-shirts and heavy-lidded eyes signaling hours
without sleep. As Pennington and a few of his fellow "reality TV" designers
slipped from behind the bus to greet the crowd and the family, the real stars
sought relief from the late summer heat. They sipped bottled water and leaned
against shade trees.
The real stars were the workers of Alure Home Improvements, an East Meadow
remodeling company that was called in to do 3 1/2 months of construction work -
roughly $150,000 worth of free labor - in five days. That's right, five days.
The other stars were the dozens of Queens and Long Island suppliers that
donated more than $100,000 in materials.
The result: A single mother and her two 12-year-old adopted sons are
sleeping in their own place after more than 2 1/2 years of being homeless.
"A miracle, not a makeover," says Mike Kuplicki, head of Alure's
basement-remodeling division.
In just five days, which is the show's time frame, Alure transformed a
sagging shell of rotted framing atop a crumbling foundation into a "smart home"
- with video security cameras and a 47-inch surround-sound plasma TV and
central air conditioning; with a master bedroom featuring a full bath and
cyclone fireplace, and an eat-in island kitchen with granite countertops and a
formal living room with access to a first-floor powder room. The vacant
two-story house went from eyesore to envy of the neighborhood - a three-bedroom
home of style and comfort.
Oh, and don't forget the blacktop go-kart track in the backyard, complete
with go- karts and mopeds.
To see the home's new interior - like the study-hall themed bedroom with a
raised sleeping area and protractor-like headboards - you'll have to tune in
when the show airs in October; "Extreme Makeover" prohibits competing media
from taking interior photographs. But, we warn you, you'll get more "Hokeywood"
than "reality."
"Now I see who the real workers are," says Sukhdeo Ramnarain, a neighbor of
the Alis. "The star, Ty Pennington, he spent most of the week on a lawn chair
in my backyard," Ramnarain says. "About the only time he got up was when they
brought pizza or when someone needed him on camera."
But not the real stars. Those guys rolled up their sleeves and worked. Matt
Pohevitz of Alure's service team, for example, did a little of everything,
from being a gofer to helping with demolition. Mike Camastro gave up his desk
job as a production manager to be a team captain on a roofing and siding crew.
On their feet and on guard for virtually the entire time, the real
directors of the show were Sal Ferro, Alure president, and his project manager,
Doug Cornwell. The two worked a previous "Extreme Makeover" segment - the
renovation of a Manhattan apartment for two New York City firefighters - so
they knew what to expect.
They designed a rigid game plan for the Ali project. Two- and three-member
crews were formed for specific jobs, and each crew had a team captain who
communicated by walkie- talkie. "We knew at precise moments what every crew was
doing," Ferro says.
On a typical busy remodeling job, two or three crews might be working
side-by-side. But even that's rare. Mostly, crews travel from site to site to
complete jobs, and the company handles several different remodeling projects at
the same time. "Here, we had 20 crews working right next to each other," says
Ferro, whose company put a hold on all other outside jobs during the five-day
commitment.
The workers, dressed in the show's blue T-shirts with the "Extreme
Makeover" emblem on the backs, resembled pit crews for NASCAR race teams, with
the house as the race car. They moved quickly, carting away more than 270 yards
of demolished material in the first six hours. Usually, such a feat might take
two or three times as long.
"That first day was probably the roughest," says Cornwell. That's when they
discovered rotted framing, an unfortified foundation and a front porch of
crumbling concrete. Using braces to hold up the second story, framing crews
replaced every two-by-four on the structure. New footings - the concrete base
upon which a foundation rests - were poured. The front porch was demolished,
forcing the quick redesign of a new cedar front porch and a slightly off-center
front door.
Virtually all work went on simultaneously. Shifts were 12- and 18-hours
long; workers slept at a local motel. Crew members were literally bumping
shoulders and jumping over power saws at the job site.
"We were framing the basement with metal studs when another basement crew
needed concrete, probably for the footings," Kuplicki says. He remembers
turning his head, presumably to reach for something. "There was a chute about
an inch from my ear, and a rush of wet concrete just rushed by. That'd never
happen on a typical job site."
Says Cornwell: "We told our people check your patience and your ego at the
door."
The TV folks did do their part - it just didn't involve much muscle and
sweat, at least not from what onlookers and visitors to the site could tell.
The show's producers went door-to-door weeks before work began to request
approval from neighbors for round-the-clock work. They sought and got
cooperation from the city to get immediate access to building inspectors for
instant approval. Utility companies responded as if the calls were for an
emergency.
"When they were putting in the electric, they needed Con Edison right away
for something," Ramnarain says. "Boom. The Con Ed truck was here in a minute. I
called Con Ed two weeks ago, and I still haven't heard from them."
Such cooperation is crucial if the project is to keep its rigid schedule,
says executive producer Conrad Ricketts. "This is a show about community. The
neighborhood, the city and local businesses all work together to help a family
in need."
Mauline Vixon and Dolly Sookdeo, who live across the street, say residents
had no objection to the noise and bustle. "They told us her story, and our
response is, 'Anything we can do to help.'" Plus, the new- and-improved home is
a positive for property values. "Who wants a vacant home on their block,
right?" says Vixon.
Ali's story was revealed to producers in an online application. She had
given a contractor $72,000 to add a second story to her near-century-old box
ranch. The contractor took the money, gutted the interior, put on the second
story, then filed for bankruptcy. With no running water and an uninhabitable
house, Ali and her sons bounced between living with friends and family in New
Jersey and even staying in a homeless shelter.
Family and friends agree that Ali is finally getting something she
deserves. "This is a miracle for her family, not just her and the
neighborhood," says Daisy Colter, Ali's 87-year-old mother, who lives in
Harlem. "I was very worried about my daughter."
Worry seemed far away as it became time to film the family's reaction to
their remodeled home. When the double-decker bus pulled away and the house was
revealed, Ali and her sons - who were not allowed to see the work in progress -
embraced. As the crowd and the design group applauded its approval, mother and
sons formed a bouncing huddle of joy like winning baseball players reacting to
clinching the World Series.
Ali mouthed the words "Oh my God" and "Thank you" several times, and the
design group got most of the on-camera credit. Pennington, who got out of the
neighbor's lawn chair and turned into a bolt of energy when filming began,
motioned to the blue-shirted construction crews and clapped as the crowd raised
its noise level in acknowledgment of the workers.
For the real stars, the family's gratitude was sufficient. "Just to see her
reaction, that was payment enough," says Charlie Fishman, an Alure
electrician. "That made it all worthwhile." Spoken like a real star.
