Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

CertaPro joins a reality television show to give a family their home back

Reynald and Casey Voisine and their four children, of Manchester, New Hampshire, lost their home to the area’s Mother’s Day flood in 2006. Their house was not in a flood zone, and a highway separated their home from the river, but the water rose until they needed Reynald’s father to come in his fourwheel drive pickup truck to evacuate the family along with stranded rescue workers. Their house was condemned because of mold and had to be torn down. Because they didn’t have flood insurance, they couldn’t rebuild. They rented the second floor of the house right next door to the empty lot that once was their home. They were still paying the mortgage on the house that no longer existed, and were doing everything they could to hold on. They couldn’t get a loan because of outstanding medical bills from Reynald’s misdiagnosed bout with appendicitis. They received some rent assistance from FEMA, but that was about to run out.When they were close to losing everything, the people from the ABC home improvement reality show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” arrived to build them the house of their dreams.

Serge Nadeau, owner of CertaPro of Southern New Hampshire, heard about the effort from the general contractor handling the project. He reached out to the owner. “We had a conversation, and I decided I wanted to be part of the project,” explains Nadeau. Not only did this franchisee agree to help, he became a sponsor. For the franchise, that meant working on no other projects for the week until the makeover was finished. For Nadeau, it meant very little sleep. He was one of two lead men on the job. “I basically lived there,” he says.

It’s a community thing

The project began on a Saturday afternoon and finished Thursday morning, but painting didn’t begin until Monday.For the majority of their time there, at least four trades, including tile installers, painters, cabinet makers, electricians, and plumbers, were all working in the same area. Nadeau says that is an indicator of how much of a community project this house was. “My experience with working on new construction is that trades don’t want to be working at the same time. But for a project like this, everyone was there to help and really cooperated.”

Nadeau managed his painters as well as volunteer painters who arrived at night, because work continued around the clock. On Wednesday, because of scheduling, he was overseeing 35 painters, making sure walls were painted the right colors and giving assignments. In general, the team worked three painters to a room. The painters used Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore interior paint. Both companies donated supplies and paint.

The most volunteers ever

Everyone got involved. Nadeau’s SherwinWilliams representative, Mark Duchesne, visited the project, picked up one of the specialty sprayers that Nadeau had with him, and did all the finishing lacquer work on the bedroom furniture. He finished a bed, night stands, and baseball stadium seating that was cut to fit on site for the family’s entertainment room. The office manager for the Southern New Hampshire franchise, Nicole Richard, who had never painted before, volunteered in the middle of the night. “I left to get some sleep,” explains Nadeau. “When I got back around 2 a.m., there were so many volunteers waiting off site that some had to be turned away.” This “Extreme Makeover” project had the most sponsors and the most volunteers of any show to date.

Nadeau shot a skit with one of the onscreen designers, Michael Moloney, but the skit was cut. However, one of Nadeau’s painters did make it on screen while putting the finishing touches on some baseboards.

The Voisine family was sent on a Caribbean yacht cruise while the team worked on their new home. Their reaction when they returned? “I have never seen a family more genuinely moved and grateful,” reports Nadeau. “The father kept saying, ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this for me, when there are so many other people without homes. Why me?’ He meant it. You could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. It confirmed for me that all the sleeplessness and the energy expended was worth it. The family’s happiness solidified for me the feeling that we’d done something really great.”