Paul's Extreme Makeover Blog

This week the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition bus rolls into St. Meinrad, Indiana. Located in the southern tip of Indiana, St. Meinrad is home to one of only two Benedictine Monasteries in the country. I feel like a broken record when I write these each week, but I have to say that once again I've been overwhelmed by the support from the community. Not only did the locals come out in droves to support the Extreme team, but they also came to support something greater than this show, The American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

Shawna Farina, mother of three and a survivor, shows just how strong and resilient the human spirit can be. As a child, Shawna watched her mother struggle with beat breast cancer, and now for the past year Shawna's three children (Lacey, Brian, and Summer) have had to watch her go through the same ordeal. Through it all, she has managed to work, raise money and organize the local Relay for Life walks. Now a survivor, Shawna, Steve, Lacey, Brian and Summer, struggle to turn their drafty 135-year-old farmhouse into a warm and safe environment for them and their children to grow up, and old, in together. That's where we came in.

My fun project this week had to be little Summer's room. Summer had just turned six and was truly a doll so I thought, "Why not give her a dollhouse?" Why not make everything her size? And we did just that. Everything for her room was built 2/3 scale. It turned out great and a perfect size for her. You have to tune in to watch her reaction, it's priceless.

The Farina home literally sits in the shadows of the great spires of the St. Meinrad Arch Abby. The Arch Abby is home to about 150 Benedictine monks who live, study and, as I later discovered, brew beer within. I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the grounds and came across an awesome carpentry workshop, and being of the trade, I needed to explore more. In this workshop was the greatest collection of 120 to 135-year-old tools, all still operated by the 76-year-old lead carpenter, Father Germaine. What a great find. This is the Mecca for anyone who has any interest in carpentry or woodworking, Preston would have loved it.

Speaking of great craftsmanship, a big thanks to our builder this week, Todd Kersteins of Kersteins Home & Design. Todd was a great guy, a great builder and had a personal connection to this family and the Relay for Life. Todd's Mother, who was present for this entire build, also is a survivor of breast cancer, so you know that this build was very near and dear to his heart. The connection really showed in this home, it turned out beautifully.

As I mentioned before, this cause is larger than just our show and the community of St. Meinrad, and the state of Indiana proved that. During the build, the American Cancer Society held a special Relay for Life walk in honor of Shawna. Thousands of supporters came out to walk and light candles for their loved ones who have suffered, or are suffering from, cancer. It was a very powerful and moving week for me and the rest of the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crew and we were honored to be a part of it.

Get more information about the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition airs Sundays at 8 pm/ET.

Smack in the center of farm country is where the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition bus stops this week. Beautiful fields of corn arranged in perfect rows stretch as far as the eye can see. We are in Gladbrook, Iowa, and we are here to join the community to help a local family rebuild their home and farm.

The Kibe family: Shawn and Amy, Kody (13), Blake (10) and Christian (6). Theirs is the story of a young family who leave big-city life and move to the country to introduce their children to the wholesome, hardworking and rewarding life of running a farm. These kids have thrived, learning the lessons of hard work and reaping the rewards of working together. The boys' grades began to improve and they began to spend a whole lot of quality time together tending to the livestock and scraping by running a working farm. A few days before Christmas '05, the family was out picking up Mom from her job at a local department store when they received a frantic call from a neighbor: Their house was on fire! The Kibes returned home just in time to see the firemen tossing the charred remains of their wrapped Christmas gifts out of the broken windows. The house and most of its contents were a complete loss. This family needed our help and a second chance.

One of my projects this episode was working with Preston on Kody's architecture-themed room. Preston designed this awesome drafting table that I was able to build for him. I also wanted to make sure that the Kibes would feel secure in their new home so I made sure that we put in all the latest fire protective equipment available on the market. A unique piece of art in this home is the awesome work of Pat Acton. Pat makes these incredibly detailed replicas of famous landmarks out of nothing more than matchsticks, and he presented a model of our Extreme Makeover home made from 6,000 of them for display. As incredible as the matchstick home appeared, it takes a backseat to the actual Kibe home. Our incredible builder Rick Tollakson of Hubbell Homes, based out of West Des Moines, Iowa, created a beautiful home that was perfect for the Kibes and their needs and that just looked beautiful, built with precision and skill down to the last detail.

Iowa is football country, and Gladbrook is no exception. Friday night the design team and I went out to the local high-school game and got to meet the locals and feel the love and support that the Kibes had provided firsthand. The high-school cheerleaders are just one example of how this community continues to come together, presenting us with the $250 they had been working so hard to put together for a trip to a cheerleading competition in Florida! Imagine that, they were willing to give up their trip so that a family they hardly knew had a chance to rebuild their home. Preston and I were so moved by this gesture that we decided to give that money back to the team; they really deserved the trip.

Thanks for reading, stay tuned to catch these wonderful families and communities that the Extreme Makeover design team and crew have the fortune of meeting and working with every week.

ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition airs Sundays at 8 pm/ET.

This week I found myself just 30 miles away from the Canadian border in beautiful Minot, N.D. I love small towns and great communities with people who all know one another and will do anything to help a neighbor in need. That was truly the story with this wonderful family, the Blivens.

The Blivens are as loving, sharing and close a group as I've ever had the pleasure of meeting: Bill, Michelle, Kristen, Aaron, and Taylor. Aaron was born with a disease called Cerebral Palsy and this family has worked so hard to make Aaron's life as ordinary as any other 14-year-old's. Michelle even managed to start and run a great organization called Dream Catchers. Imagine that. This woman, who has to care for, feed, bathe and raise this remarkable young man, managed to find time to start a program for other children with similar limitations to be able to enjoy our national pastime — baseball!

Let me explain Dream Catchers. They are a baseball league specifically for kids with disabilities who need a helping hand to safely play the sport. Michelle started Dream Catchers because she wanted every kid to have the same opportunity to do what the kid next door does. So if the kid next door is playing baseball, she wants to make sure that Aaron can play ball, too. Dream Catchers is exactly what is says it is: kids catching their dreams.

One Dream Catcher I met was a little girl by the name of Gracie — we just hit it off, she's an angel. Together we were able to run the bases and it just made my week. When those kids are on the field, that's their field, that's their time. Babe Ruth, Hornace Wagner, Hank Aaron... that's who you're looking at out there. We were cheering for the World Series teams, while these kids were just having the time of their lives.

The build went great. Thanks to our wonderful builders Ty Leslie and Daryl Braham of Heritage Homes. These guys just turned out a great home. They are based out of Fargo, more than four hours away! They were doing this for their fellow North Dakotans. This build went a little differently from our usual demo and rebuild. The Blivens had a great little house; it just wasn't working for this family. We literally jacked the house up off the foundation and drove it down the street to give away to another family.

I'm very happy to be working on Aaron's room this week. It was tough because of his special needs, but I think I was able to ease some of the challenges, you know, and still have it be a fun 14-year-old kid's room. One of the things I wanted to make sure of was that his room was not a hospital room. That it wasn't this sterile-looking room with all this technology in it. I think I was able to accomplish that by incorporating a few of Aaron's favorite things.

While researching Aaron's room, I stumbled upon the local rodeo. I had never been to one before. It was amazing. All the sights, sounds, and smells…quite unique to a rodeo. I had a great time collecting authentic items, meeting real cowboys and cowgirls, and they even let me announce! I did end up buying a cowboy hat, but you won't be seeing me with it on anytime soon!

ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition airs Sundays at 8 pm/ET.

This week the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition [Sundays at 8 pm/ET on ABC] bus takes us to one of my favorite parts of the country, a place where country music is a way of life: Hendersonville, Tennessee. We experienced a quintessential Southern community when we visited this town just 20 miles outside of Nashville, with its famous landmarks the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman Theater and the Country Music Hall of Fame. It's a community that embraced us as one of their own.

The Hawkins family... what a story. A little over six months ago, an F-3 tornado (over 175 mph sustained winds!) ripped through Hendersonville and completely demolished the Hawkins family home. Jerrod, dad and a firefighter, was out on call helping his neighbors and only could watch from afar as the tornado headed right towards his home, his two boys — Jair, 6, Cole, 4 — and hid lovely wife, Amy, who were inside taking shelter in the basement.

Now, Amy will tell you that what she did to protect her boys was simply a mother's instinct, but I call her a hero. Amy took Jair and Cole down to the basement to weather the storm, but the tornado was too much for the small house to bear and it collapsed on top (literally on top!) of the three huddled within. Covering the boys with her own body, Amy took the brunt of it, completely crushing her spine and leaving her paralyzed from the waist down. Instinct or not, she is a hero!

The Hawkins' home was completely demolished, saving our awesome builder, David Luecke of Capitol Homes, the trouble of tearing it down. From a knife buried into an oak tree up to its handle to the wedding dress (still on the hanger) found a quarter mile away, I can't get over the complete devastation and sheer force a tornado can unleash. It's a good thing we had the complete support of the community, people like Jerrod's firefighter buddies, the local AAA baseball team the National Sound, and even Farmer Bob (the Hawkins' neighbor).

A high point of my work on this house came when I got to make the bed for little Jair in his special baseball-themed room. What a ballplayer Jair is. Immediately after door-knock, Preston and I started to play a little ball with him. He hits, he catches and he throws just as well as I do (and a little better than Preston does). Pay attention, scouts. I also was able to join forces with Preston to construct a giant fort for the boys to play in, using the felled oaks from the tornado-ravaged property.

Being so close to Nashville, I managed to get in a little R&R. In what is now one of my top three concerts I have ever been to in my life, Ty, Preston and I were able to attend a private show put on by music legend Tom Waits. I have to be sure to mention the great support and hospitality the Gibson team showed us while in their backyard. They even went so far as to bring their own bus, which is, pretty much, a traveling sound studio. You'd better believe that Preston and I let loose in there as much as we could, plugging in the ES-336 or the ES-175 (guitars, to the laymen) and jamming away. What a great week and a great family. I'm looking forward to the Extreme Makeover team's next adventure and the next group of friends and family we'll get to make.

Hello, Paul DiMeo here. Yeah, the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition designer with the dark glasses who cries a lot. Just call me the carpenter who cares -- in fact, I care so much about the families we help that I'm actually writing a blog!

Isn't a blog some kinda online diary? Ok, here we go:

Dear blog, I'm so happy today! I arrived in Alaska, which means that I've visited all 50 states! (Big smile showing teeth.)

OK -- it's not about me, it's about the family. And we went to North Pole, Alaska, to be the Santa Claus to single mom Betsy and her family of 13. Yes, we met Santa Claus while we were there.

Life at the top of the world hasn't been easy for Betsy. Thirteen people cohabitating in her 900-square foot home without insulation -- not a good situation when the weather can hit 60 below. And it definitely hurts brother Rob, who Betsy took in, along with his three kids, when he was diagnosed with kidney failure.

This truly was an "extreme build." I thought that we'd face blizzards and polar bears, instead we got 22 hours of sunlight. You should try getting shut-eye when it's only dark out for 10 percent of the day. The upside: we could work 24/7! We actually moved the bus at 8 pm (even though it looked like mid-afternoon).

Thank god for Landmark. Homebuilder Dave Miller, his wife, kids and the Landmark team knew exactly what they were doing -- in fact, thousands in the neighborhood pitched in, in Extreme Makeover tradition. We had the neighbors, the builders and the crew working nonstop. People do like Betsy, who touched so many hearts that we got 300 letters nominating her family.

My big projects for the week were working on the football field, doing the Alaska room with Preston for the three littlest kids, and helping the crew mud and tape the drywall. That's right, for those of you who think we are designers in name only, I was drafted by the crew (who could obviously tell I was an expert) to get my hands dirty in the mud. Later in the week, Preston Sharp and I were sent off to a local stream to pan for gold, something everyone must do if you find yourself in Alaska. It started out harmless enough, when I noticed a gleam in Preston's eye... accompanied by a gleam in his pan! It was on: We had caught gold fever. I can see why people got shot in the old days: It got competitive, to say the least.

We both walked away with a little gold dust, but no claim to stake.

After all that hard work, my pal Preston (you know, the guy who is the Encyclopedia of Architecture) and I blew off some steam by taking a road trip 'round God's country, a far cry from the "concrete of L.A.," as Preston calls it. Preston and I met while filming the pilot of Extreme and have been friends ever since. Not only do we share a love of craftsmanship and building, but we also bonded during our many jam sessions.

On this trip, we went fly-fishing (Preston has been trying to teach me for a while) and believe it or not, I actually schooled the old boy by netting the biggest Arctic char. I guess that was my present from Santa Claus.

For more from the North Pole, don't forget to tune in to the season premiere of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, this Sunday, Sept. 24, at 8 pm/ET on ABC.