Extreme Makeover: Inside Tour Grateful family thanks supporters, will hold an open house

Now that a nationwide audience has gotten a look inside the Creasey family's new home, the family is finally getting a chance to settle in.

"It feels like home now, it really does," said Tricia Creasey.

The home on Allred Road in Lexington was featured in Sunday's episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, an ABC reality series in which deserving families are given new homes. That episode can be seen online at abc.go.com.

The Creasey family -- parents William and Tricia, and daughters Brittany, 13, and twins Makenzie and Makayla, both 5 -- was selected in November.

The Creaseys had not been able to repair their old home after Tricia was found to have colon cancer and had started treatments. The bills left the family unable to pay to fix such problems as cracks in the foundation, holes in the floors, walls and roof, water damage and no insulation.

Tricia Creasey teaches seventh-grade science and social studies at Brown Middle School in Thomasville. She refused to stop teaching, even when she was undergoing chemotherapy.

Friends recommended the family as a contender for Extreme Makeover, and the producers of the show tapped Jason Hedrick, the owner of Hedrick Creative Building in Lexington, to oversee the construction.

Over the course of seven days, more than 1,000 volunteers joined with the show's design team to tear down the 1,180-square-foot home and replace it with a 3,100-square-foot home.

"It's a lot more cleaning," Tricia Creasey said of the new home, "but for a family of five, we needed the extra space."

The house is a two-story, log-cabin style building with a long front porch that includes three rocking chairs that have been in the family for years, a bench made from a cedar tree that had been in their front yard and cedar pillars holding up the porch roof.

The great room combines the living room, dining room and kitchen. It's a huge, sprawling room. William Creasey said he and Hedrick figured that the great room is as big as their whole house was before.

The wall toward the front of the house has an enormous fireplace with gas logs, in front of which are couches, chairs and a coffee table. Shelves surrounding the windows and stretching high up the two-story room are lined with books, knickknacks and Tricia Creasey's collection of cookie jars. The latest addition to the collection is a jar with two children sharing an umbrella; it was sent to Tricia Creasey by actress Reese Witherspoon, who appeared on the show to provide encouragement for the family.

The dining-room table, which was featured prominently on the show, is a reminder of their old home, built using slats from their old front porch.

The kitchen has quartz countertops and a stove, oven and refrigerator designed in a red-and-brass retro style.

"It's a huge improvement from what we had," Tricia Creasey said. "They built the perfect house for us."

The master bedroom is on the first floor, complete with a second fireplace and a coffee table with a glass case that holds a scrapbook assembled by Tricia Creasey's students to provide words of support for her. The kids' rooms are upstairs, with the twins sharing side-by-side rooms stuffed with toys, games and stuffed animals, with an emphasis on pigs in Makayla's room and on pandas in Makenzie's.

Brittany's room was designed around her fascination with Paris, and includes a spiral staircase that holds her shoes, strings of lights across the ceiling and an enormous chair shaped like the letter B, which was built of sheet metal by Richard Childress Racing. Throughout the home are photos of the family that were shot by a photographer hired by the show.

The family plans to get together with a financial planner, something recommended by the producers. "We still have our mortgage, and our property taxes are going to triple, I'm sure," William Creasey said. "That's what they told me to prepare for."

But he said he would not make the same mistake as some recipients of homes from Extreme Makeover who turned around and took out expensive new mortgages. And their utility bills are lower now, he said, because the home is more energy efficient. They also don't have to worry about medical bills for awhile. CVS Pharmacy donated $100,000 to help them pay those.

On Feb. 20 and 21, the Creaseys will hold an open house to let the public see the inside of their new home, with donations of $10 for adults or $5 for kids going to cancer-related charities in Davidson County.

For more information, call Davidson County Cancer Services at 249-7265.

Their appearance on Extreme Makeover provided plenty of benefits for Davidson County, according to Robin Bivins from the county's tourism office.

"It served as a morale booster to the community," Bivins said. "For just a while, the focus of the community was helping one of their own and the economic stress was put aside. But more than a morale booster, the project served as an economic booster. Lexington received more than 950 hotel-room nights from the Extreme crews, they stayed in our hotels, ate in our restaurants, bought gas from our stations. When you add all that together, the economic impact to the community was a minimum of $175,000."

While their home was being built, the Creaseys were sent to spend a few days at Disney World.

"I often think we missed out on the best part," Tricia Creasey said.

"We knew we lived in a great community," William Creasey said. "But it was just overwhelming to know that all these people were out here, not knowing us, taking time out from their jobs to help our family. It's very humbling. It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

tclodfelter@wsjournal.com


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