Family comes home to a whole new life

'Extreme Makeover' house revealed after one-week building blitz

What started a week ago with a spiky-haired television star yelling into a bullhorn ended Thursday with cheers, tears and a new, English cottage-style home raised amid Poplar Street's older houses. Raleigh's extreme week of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" concluded as it began -- loudly.

As many as 2,000 people crammed into the neighborhood near downtown to scream "move that bus!" as a 48-foot luxury coach rolled away to reveal the new home of the Riggins family.

Linda and William Riggins and their three children learned last week that they had been selected by the ABC show, which builds or renovates a home for a needy family. Linda suffers from arthritis in her hip and William is legally blind, but they have been active helping others in the community.

The short bus trip was the climax to Raleigh's "Extreme Makeover" odyssey, a week of crowd control, video-age good works, preservationists' complaints and the craning of thousands of necks, all trying to spy Ty Pennington, the show's handsome star.

On Thursday, even before she saw the home, Linda Riggins looked as though she were crying. Her hands cupped her mouth, then raised to the sky. She and her husband wrapped their arms around their children. After seeing the house, she jumped and hugged William.

Pennington turned to the crowd and said: "I think they like it."

A few minutes later, Pennington led the family toward the home. They stopped so William Riggins could feel the synthetic stone exterior. Then they stepped inside, where they would walk through each room, with cameras capturing their every reaction and emotion.

Show officials won't make the family available for interviews until a news conference at the house this morning. And exactly what the family saw is under wraps for now. No one else was allowed in.

But volunteers and others who have worked in the home say there is an elevator, a big kitchen, a spacious master bedroom suite, a workshop, a Seeing Eye dog for William Riggins and a Lego-themed room.

"Linda's going to be absolutely floored by what can come together in just a few days," said her sister, Tina Hawkins, who saw the house. She said the kitchen is nice and that the kids' rooms are "pretty cool."

The Triangle's latest waltz with reality television began last Thursday, when Pennington took his bullhorn and yelled "Good morning, Riggins family!" They were quickly flown to Disney World for a week, while a crew of more than 2,000 volunteers and the show's design team got to work.

The old home -- which had structural cracks, a bug infestation and no insulation -- was torn down by heavy equipment and demolition derby cars. Streets were blocked off, and crews worked 24 hours a day to finish on time.

Old house mourned

Some Triangle residents were thrilled, taking buses to the site to gawk at the filming and keep an eye out for Pennington. Other folks rejected the project, saying the old home deserved better than to be torn down for a television spectacle.

A few complaints continued Thursday. J. Myrick Howard, president of Preservation North Carolina, said the one-week construction won't compare to the standards of the structure that was torn down.

"If you start exploring new houses in terms of quality of materials, there's no comparison really," Howard said.

The new home is about 3,100 square feet -- nearly twice the size of the family's old house. Producers said the English cottage style came about after designers and homebuilders saw similar homes nearby in historic Mordecai.

Howard said the new house "certainly doesn't look like it fits" on Poplar Street, but some neighbors didn't seem to mind.