A Minnetonka family was picked by ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition to receive a new home built by the television team. This is happening about 10 miles from our home, I'll have to go check it out.
From this morning's Star Tribune:
Hushed neighbors watched as the bus crept slowly up their quiet
Minnetonka street and halted in front of the taupe two-story house on
Park Lane. Suddenly, Ty Pennington sprang out of the bus with a
bullhorn and bellowed, "Goooood morning, Swenson-Lee family!"
Nothing. No Swensons, no Lees.
The family was inside, making
so much noise that they couldn't hear the news they were hoping for --
that they would get a brand-new house.
They were trying to pass
the time, Vicki Seliger Swenson said, to keep from wondering if they
would get a visit from ABC's popular TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home
Edition." They knew they were finalists, and they knew they would find
out Tuesday if they were winners.
Pennington, the show's
hyperactive lead designer, tried again. This time the family poured out
of the house: Vicki; her husband, Erik; their three children and the
four children of her Vicki's late sister, Teri Lee.
The Swenson house, while fine for a family of four or maybe five,
became a tight fit when the family unexpectedly expanded to nine
following Lee's death. A widow and 3M technician, Lee, 38, was murdered
nearly a year ago by her abusive ex-boyfriend in her family's
Washington County home.
Erik and Vicki Swenson, both teachers at Hopkins High School, didn't
think twice about taking in Teri's kids. The house, however, was
another matter. With only three bedrooms, beds and dressers took over
many of the living areas.
Their students made
a videotape nominating the family for a new house and sent it to the
show's producers. The result is that quiet Park Lane will be a TV set
for the next week, and neighbors say they couldn't be more pleased.
The new house, to be built by TJB Homes of Blaine and an army of
volunteer carpenters and subcontractors, will be 5,600 square feet with
seven bedrooms and five baths. That will give the family members more
than twice as much space as they had before.
It's the show's
100th episode -- the 99th is already under way in Cheyenne, Wyo. -- and
the first in Minnesota, said senior producer Diane Korman. Nearly all
the materials and labor for the project are donated, she said.
Demolition
of the current house will begin Thursday, followed quickly by the
laying of a new foundation. Once the house is built, it will be
furnished according to the needs and special tastes of each family
member.
Tom Budzynski, owner of TJB
Homes, admitted to being a bit dazzled by the fast-paced construction
schedule and compared it to being an astronaut on the launch pad. "We
can build a home -- that's almost the easy part," he said. "But you're
also trying to create something."
While the work is being done, the family will
spend several days at Disneyland, courtesy of the show.The show's tentative
air date is Nov. 25.
Everyone will be back next Tuesday for the "reveal," as the show calls the moment when the family first sees their new home.
They
know what to expect because they're longtime fans of the show. But,
Vicki Swenson said, "never in a million years did we think we would be
the family in need."
In other news today : Happy 50th Birthday to Mike !
from your loving family ! xoxoxo
"Off To The Chapel" is the jubilantIn other wedding news:
