the WILDEST Extreme Home Makeover episodes (still shocked 20 years later)

MOVE THAT BUS!! Remember that iconic line? We sure do! Today, we're taking a nostalgic trip back into the wild and wonderful world of Extreme Home Makeover. Some of these episodes are almost 20 years old—do they still hold up? Join us as we relive the drama, the tears, and the crazy transformations.

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MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO:

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VIDEO CHAPTERS:
0:00 - intro
2:55 - home #1 (2011)
9:09 - home #2 (2004)
16:55 - home #3 (2004)
21:55 - home #4 (2011)

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VIDEO CREDITS
Host & Creative: Becky Wright, Rochelle Gracey, Rachael Nyhuus, Anne McCormack
Head of Production and Operations: Nina Pikula
Producer: Anne McCormack
Creative Director: Emma Keat
Video Editors: Tara Crawford
Social Media: Giuliana Rucchetto & Melanie Parkinson

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OTHER PLATFORMS
@thesorrygirls everywhere!

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Please note that we are not professionals and that all projects seen on our channel must be completed at your own risk. We do not take responsibility for any harm or injury that may occur. Be safe!

[wwe]

Rochelle aspiring to not work is very relatable

[agivens]

My aunt and her family were on the show! They live in St. Louis Missouri, and they still live in the home to this day! The kids rooms of course were redone (one being a life sized doll house, and the other a farm), but it was such an amazing experience for our entire family!

[Bexinmo]

Ok, so the first family ended up having to file for bankruptcy because they got behind on their mortgage. In 2020, their house caught fire, but thanks to their dogs alerting long before the smoke detector, they all made it out alive. They had to stay in a rental quite far away (because of the dogs). In driving back and forth, the husband saw a building for lease and got the idea to open his own restaurant. It went well until mid 2023 when they had to close. They now operate a food truck.

No info on the second family. The home was listed for sale in 2011 and sold for $460k. It was listed and sold again in 2015 for $865k.

My Sleuthing skills were depleted looking for Sweet Alice's house. Couldn't find it at all. She is 90, and still active in her community and has been recognized by several presidents for her untiring efforts for the Watts Neighborhood in LA.

[J.Robison]

I had a neighbor who worked on one of the Extreme Home Makeover homes. He said the home looked good enough for the brief coverage of the show, but if you looked closely, there were all sorts of little issues.

[guineapig]

Rachelle's "I didn't aspire to work" was fantastic!

[ashlyncancellieri]

According to wikipedia, "As of 2020, nine of the original show's recipient families have given up their homes due to financial issues, which included two foreclosures." Apparently the show provided a financial advisor to the families to help with the finance stuff after the renovation, and most of the homes that were given up for financial reasons were for the same kinds of things that other families (from all kinds of economic statuses and all over the country) do: unemployment, medical bills, and taking out home equity loans against their homes (which is the case for the two foreclosures–it sounds like those families used the increased value of the homes to take out additional mortgages to be able to start businesses they didn't really have experience with and that went poorly?). Some of them were absolutely from property tax increases, but considering the show had over 200 episodes from 2004-2012 and, in 2020, and only 9 of the homes had been lost due to financial issues, that's still a pretty significant success rate (and it makes sense if they did provide financial advisors for the families after the fact that they would have foreseen the issue with increased property taxes and such and intended to help the families navigate that). Other people just sold their homes, like people do, and some people were still living in those same homes many many years later (like the woman they helped turn her house partially into a community center for local children, that Mary J. Blige took part in, and who still lived there as of 2019!)

That being said, shows like this that try to do "extreme" things like build or renovate entire homes in a week are always going to have problems. They don't have time to do some things properly, considering there are just some things that require time to dry or set (not to mention when things go wrong and there's really no getting around needing extra time to fix things well), so the quality can suffer. The sudden (and likely irreversible) decrease in privacy for the families who have now had their home broadcast to the millions of people who watched the show and also alerted everyone local to them that their home might be a good target for theft (a decrease in privacy that I cannot imagine every family really understood would happen when they agreed to be on the show). The fact that it was a TV show at all meant that they had to get ratings, which meant they pushed for sensational stories and were low key exploiting them (or at least it was skeevy–to me true exploitation is what people do in the Kensington neighborhood of Philly when they drive through and take videos of the people who are struggling with homelessness and substance use to put on their tiktok or instagram reels to get views without ever even getting out of their car or interacting with the community in any way, whereas EMHE at least hired people to build/renovate from the local area and they left the families with nicer homes). And sometimes, people might do anything to BE a sensational story and cause harm along the way (like the family accused of adopting a bunch of kids just to get on the show then kicking the kids out after they'd gotten their new home–the kids sued the show but ultimately lost because the judge didn't think they'd done enough to prove their case).

Overall, the show ran for an incredibly long time and did a LOT of homes for a lot of different people. With such a varied client base, there are going to be tons of different people in different situations who make different decisions, maybe good or maybe bad, and just by virtue of the numbers being high there were going to be issues. Both of these things can be true, that the show did a good thing and did their best for the families they helped, and that the show wasn't perfect in it's conception and caused problems (sometimes unforeseen) for the families it built/renovated homes for 🤷‍♀

[vernieplummer]

I want you to know that I really enjoy this addition to your channel with the workshop floor. I’m enjoying the subjects and watching you interact together. It also seems that it it puts you available to watch a new video much more often. I’m like all sorry girls all the time!

[bethanyacrey]

Can you guys do an episode reviewing that show Trading Spaces? Some of their choices were wild.

[yoonminssi]

you guys should watch DIY SOS! its a wonderful show in the uk that usually helps families with difficult family situations, especially when it came to disabled children who really needed facilities to improve their daily lives

[WonderKitty]

Please do Decorating Cents!! They focused on using things already in the home and did the makeover for under $500. I loved this show! Though I did always wonder how people had so many extra rugs just hanging around.

[colinneagle]

Embarrassing admission time; I was in college when this show was at it's peak and some friends and I made a drinking game out of it! We couldn't agree on what the rules should be for the drinking game though, with one of my friends insisting it should be drink every time there's product placement and another insisting it should be every time a person on the show cried. Either way, this video unlocked a very niche memory for me so thank you for that!

[evlash]

I could not stop laughing at the themed rooms getting more and more ridiculous 😂

[maryspreng]

Sad thing about the series is MANY of the families could not afford to stay in their homes because it changed the tax evaluation so much that they couldn’t afford the taxes :( they could never do a follow up show because they literally left most of these people homeless

[Fms]

I will never forget when a guy was a paramedic and talked about how much he loved his job and they made his bed into an ambulance 💀 like why would he want to relive the trauma he sees everyday 😭

[jojocatattack]

A co-worker received a home from EMHE in 2006. It was built from scratch in a single week during November in torrential rain on a plot of land that was highly unstable, because a previous shoddy homebuilder had built the tract home that EMHE demolished to build the new one on an old foundation that was not leveled. The ground was literally sinking. The volunteer EMHE builder was unaware of the issues before digging the new foundation and the result was that the floors of the brand-new home were uneven and wavy. It all needed to dry out and be re-leveled, but the filming schedule did not allow. The family still lives in the home. The overarching theme was a big patriotic military family with ties to 9/11. The toddlers' room had a sort of merry go round and the oldest son's room was 2-stories tall. Ed Sanders, one of the EMHE cast members experienced a terrible hand injury, and he was treated here in town for months.

[TJAGevr]

I watched the RELIGIOUSLY every week with my mom. I have the most vivid memory of them designing a bathroom with living fish in the counter top/sink. Like the counter top itself WAS the fish tank 😂. I was SO concerned about the fish and how they would feed them. I still have questions.

[thestripelessbee]

The plane house reminds me of the hotel room situation you guys were talking about in the AD episode. “Im in planes all the time so thats what i wanted my house to feel like.” 🤣

[kenzie-anne]

the reason they dont make shows like this anymore is because 9 families lost their houses due to not being able to pay for them. they make over a house for a family in need who cant afford the utility bills, property tax increase, upkeep and maintenance, who are so in debt some refinance if the home is gifted and then get foreclosed on. id suggest looking into this show it pretty interesting. the other controversy was the shows execs looking and pushing for families with specific tragedies or rare illness for ratings and essentially exploiting them or at the very least opportunism. a few fams took the network to court i believe. the flip, some families scammed the show to get a free house and reno so.. i guess thats why this show finally ended.

[CoverediCake]

The only episodes I remember the most are when they helped a family where one of the daughters couldn't be out in the sun...so they made a blue sunny sky in her room so she could experience how it is to be out in the sun..and in the garden they put up so much fabrics for shade for her to be able to be outdoors.

[foxymama]

I watched that show while my son was a baby and swore that if Ty bullhorned outside my house I would be terrified! I would keep saying “I like calm and serene, calm and serene!!” over and over until that rang in his ears!! No airplane fuselage please! No sand on the floor EVER!!!!