Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’s Paul on Barbara Marshall, the Steps and Stages Jubilee House

This week’s story takes us to Fayetteville, N.C. where we met up with a woman by the name of Barbara Marshall. Barbara Marshall is a veteran of the Navy and she has seen a problem develop over the years with our women veterans coming back from deployment and then finding themselves homeless, without jobs and in really tough situations. Barbara has decided to take it upon herself to help these women and their children by bringing them into the Steps and Stages Jubilee House and give them a chance to get back on their feet. We had a chance to meet a few of those veterans who were staying with […]

‘‘Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Goes Out With a Bang in Tornado-torn Joplin, Missouri”

“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” is hanging up its hammer with its biggest build ever — a seven-family neighborhood in tornado-torn Joplin, Mo. Tomorrow night, the ABC series that’s built more than 200 new homes, and changed thousands of lives for the better, ends its nine-season run by building seven houses in just seven days. “For all of us that were there, Joplin was life-changing,” says series designer Paul DiMeo while rattling off stats including the 13,000 volunteers and 21 builders that flocked to Joplin to work on the houses last November, right before Thanksgiving. “To be doing this for nine years, to end on that note, is something that I’ll […]

How an unemployed carpenter became a reality TV star

Carpenter Paul DiMeo shines as a minor celebrity who uses major craftsmanship to create hope on the reality TV show, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition I needed to eat I’m reluctant to call myself a star and prefer the moniker “Minor Celebrity.” And in my case, “Minor, Minor Celebrity.” And a lucky one at that. It all began for me back in college where I majored in theater with the hope of acting in dramas and musicals on and off Broadway. Television was always an option, but I like live theater; I get energy from the audience. So I went to New York after college, hustling audition after audition, and quickly […]

‘Extreme Makeover’ star Paul DiMeo: Obama wants us to be ‘un- lazy’

Paul DiMeo, a homebuilder and the star of ABC’s Emmy-award winning reality show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” says President Obama faces a huge task: trying to make Americans less lazy. During a visit to Washington on Tuesday to accept an award from the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA), DiMeo told ITK, “Americans can be very, very lazy, and I think a lot of what [Obama] is trying to do, whether it’s [telling people to] turn off light bulbs or take better care of their health, is that he wants us to be un-lazy.” While the star is admittedly a big Obama fan, he’s not ready to be placed in the […]

Pocatella, Idaho

Every week I am part of building a house and there is a moment in that week that defines it, that tells a story all in itself. Sometimes if I am really lucky there will be a moment that defines part of who I am too. I had such a week…such a moment in Pocatello, Idaho. We built a wonderful house for the Marshall-Spreier family, a family of 9 and Betsy the dog. The family’s story is they lost their house to an electrical fire, so they have been living in their backyard and a trailer. Also, mom is a cancer survivor. The Marshall-Sperier family is beautiful family that makes […]