Barrett Home Makeover

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Season 3, episode 3
The Barrett Family
Recap By J.G. Bird
10-02-05

In the past couple of years, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has brought a little shine back to network television. The Emmy®-winning trailblazer for ABC’s ratings turn-around is a feel-good ending to Sunday evening’s family hour. (“Family Hour” is my designation; I don’t know if there really is such a thing classified in television programming anymore). The producers of the show went for the gusto last season by trying to spread their influence across two hours. “Extreme Makeover: How’d They Do That?” added and detracted from the basic show, and was cut from the line-up for this season. (My curses and blessings upon that format are still documented in my prior season recaps).

The family story is well-documented on the ABC website, and there’s little I can add in detail to illustrate the Barrett family’s situation. The Barrett’s are an all-around likeable family. You can’t begin to imagine any disharmony ever existed under their roof. They seem like any other husband and wife team, but to be nominated by the two biological and four adopted children is a testament to the grace of Billy Jack and Anne Barrett. This couple appeared capable of providing a singular devotion to calm the fears and give a lifetime of love to raising children others had deemed “unadoptable.” I can comment that you can begin to see the results of the newer nomination videos, which are following a fairly strict “shot list” given on the “How to Apply for a Makeover” page from ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition website. It makes it that much easier for the story to move along, but I’m noting less pretense to make it some “big surprise” when the crew shows up on Day One.

Billy Jack and Anne Barrett house these children on a 100-year old farmhouse and Anne home schools them in a converted garage and a study room in the house. Every child has some skill handling show horses, and it must be from the Barrett’s professional influence.
When Ty and the crew shout out their welcoming call to the Barrett household, Dusty Barrett bolts out in his socks. It’s a large family, the two middle-aged parents plus the kids introducing themselves to Ty: Dusty, A.J., Clair, Jennifer, Rebecca, and Daphne. They don’t hang as two separate groups. It’s not the Barrett girls and the kids their family adopted. Ty does take a moment alone with Rebecca and Clair Barrett to ask how they felt when the other kids were first fostered to theirs. They described it as a “chaotic” time. Disrespect was most apparent in the kids when first joining the Barrett’s, presumably because each had experienced much pain and disillusionment previously. Anne Barrett is able to demonstrate a developmental change in the drawings by one of the girls after being in their household for one year.

The way the design team tackles this Peyton, Colorado home reminds me most of the makeover on the Bakersfield, CA farm house. Showing the team the interior of the house, Billy Jack states that the newest remodeling on this house is evidenced in the Sears wall-to-wall carpeting from about 1965! The kids’ involvement with horses is scattered all about the walls of their small, shared bedrooms. Anne and her husband talk about their years of horse-handling experience. She notes, specifically, “You can see through a horse’s eyes to its soul.” You can read when a horse is mad, or afraid, and she and Billy Jack agree it’s really no different with handling their children.

Ty and the team members split up the duties for building a suitable home for this large family. They also want to provide “a little more” room: the possibility for another 2 children to have beds under this family’s roof. Ty takes on that project. The family of teens and one pre-teen get transported with their parents not by limo but by horse-drawn carriage. Their destination is not a Disney resort, but a Hilton Hawaiian resort. The next segment gets our bullhorn-toting Ty charging down the dusty trails with a large posse all on horseback surrounding him. Demolition has become a hoe-down.

Keller Homes is the contractor, and their leader speaks of the Barrett parents as an example of the best of Colorado Springs. The show is really par for the course from this point forward. Ty gets on Handycam to alert the vacationing Barrett’s, “It’s the morning of Day Two, and one of my favorite things – Demolition!” It’s a hundred year-old house. A team of horses is able to tear the front façade forward, and then the main supports are pulled out to metaphorically bring the two-story to its knees. The big claw machines rip down the remainder. The crew makes quick hash of the makeover homes now – I think they’ve finally learned where to save time in the process, so they stay ahead of schedule.

Hey family, you just saw your residence reduced to rubble - Ty suggests they head over to the local (Hawaiian) Sears’ Family Portrait Studio to get a family portrait done. Luckily, Michael Maloney dressed up that photo and several others with hand-built frames. The distressed wood was accented with a “BR” brand he had a local blacksmith forge. (“BR” for Barrett Ranch). Let’s hope, the fence they showed Michael dismantling for the wood wasn’t a neighbor’s or part of the horse corral!

The Extreme Makeover: Home Edition crew for this episode: Michael, Eduardo, Connie and Ed are instructed to get ideas by attending the local Rodeo. Michael watches Lee Aiken, one of the top bull-riders in the country blast out of the chute, (inspiration for A.J.’s red and black bull riding room) Connie ropes a steer on her first try, and Ed apparently needs to find out all he can about barrel racing. Brad Paisley, Country-Western superstar, and his band appear at the Rodeo to honor the Barrett’s. He sang “He Didn’t Have To Be.” News on Paisley’s own official website states, “After his performance Paisley asked if could visit the makeover site – which he did and they put him work along with the rest of the construction crew. Some of his physical labor will appear in the show as well as the performance.” Well, there’s no assurance of what ends up in the edited show, there was no highlighting of his helping at the build site.

They completed the separate schoolhouse, but carefully edited so the viewing audience wouldn’t see that it was a classic “little red schoolhouse” until the family reveal. Michael places a hand-forged weather vane at the pinnacle of the schoolhouse roof.

The 4000 square foot replacement home for the Barrett’s houses the largest kitchen they’ve built to date alongside a great room with two-story (20’) vaulted ceiling. There are two stone accents to the main room. The stone façade of the fireplace reaches up the full height of the wall plus the entry has an archway that is studded with the same rock treatment. There is a catwalk-style bridge over the expanse of the great room entry connecting the second story wings to the main staircase. Pam and David Keller congratulate their crews and provide Ty the keys for the move-in of furniture on Day Six.

On reveal day, they’re kind enough to bring the family home from the airport in a limo. You can tell the family is really shocked at how many people are gathered to see them enter the new house. Since there were a reported 6000 volunteers that worked the site that week, I’d say it had to be at least 7500 spectators. But our show is only one hour with commercials, so there’s no chit-chat prior to this reveal. The new home and additional buildings look to be in nearly the same orientation of the original house and garage. It’s spread out a lot more (I’d be surprised if the bus was really obscuring it much). It looks like a Ranch resort. The front is highlighted by two off-center gables and a wraparound porch. (Darker colors but similar in style to the Nick family home makeover).

Dusty is the oldest boy, and as Connie describes, “He’s got a smile as wide as the Peyton (CO) plains” - Dusty’s bedroom is all cowboy, but classy. It’s a recognition of his position in the family as oldest son. It has a mature feel to it in its dark paneling and leather/cowhide accents in the bedding. The bedroom also holds a stand with a personalized saddle – I think Michael decked out this room.

One bedroom shows horse stall doors used as the sliding closet doorways. Connie was working on the design of this one, but during the reveal I did not see this accent again.

Bedroom with brightly painted “jumps” accents is for the two girls that specialize in horse jumping. I think that’s Rebecca and Clair, the two youngest. There are two pairs of girls are still paired in new individual rooms, but these girls seem happier to find that the bunking arrangements haven’t been altered.

The Barrel racing bedroom was Ed’s handiwork, but it goes by so quickly and no time was spent in the show showing anyone but Ty building furniture. It means there’s little to describe, but memorable was the exceptional mural work by Ms. Hadley. The girls themselves seem to be depicted in the horse maneuvering images.

Anne and Billy Jack’s bedroom suite: red contrasting walls, a large, four poster bed next to a neutral stone fireplace, and finally, a matching neutral bathroom. The large jet tub and modern shower highlighted.

Ty then presents Anne and Billy Jack with “a little more” room. The flavor of this extra room is nicely neutral so that either 2 more girls or 2 more boys could join them on the ranch. It’s an abstract flower pattern on the wall, yes, but I find it almost “Happy Zen” rather than girlish.

Schoolhouse reveal is like the top prize to mom, Anne. She’s happy for the space, the modern student desks, multiple dictionaries, and laptop computers on each desk. Here, I must digress, for there’s one production process that’s becoming more and more obvious on the show that I find disturbing. The computers each had gaffer’s tape covering their distinguishing merchandising marks. Since I can’t find the addition of any computer retailer or corporate donation noted on the “As Seen On” page on abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/featured/sears303.html, I’m assuming that it requires not only donation, but some kind of advertising agreement (corporate payment) with ABC for the product to be shown on the show “unmodified.” Not that it matters to the recipients of these items. The owners of Keller Homes also provide a $100,000 check to the Barrett family at the end.