I love Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Love. It. I watch it every Sunday with my box of Kleenex at the ready for the reveal, when the family falls to the asphalt and praises Jesus.
Ty Pennington? Don’t get me started. He and his army of volunteers can and do a total tear down of a house, rebuild it, landscape it and change the lives of one lucky family forever in 40 minutes (real time, a week).
I’ve been involved in something similar, except on a larger scale – Extremely Slow Makeover Neighborhood Edition – with a smaller army of just as dedicated volunteers. But, I wonder, how does Ty and his ilk deal with permits? Codes? The neighbors who live in the house next door that looked okay, but after the new and improved abode rises up from the ashes, it makes the adjacent home look like a hell hole.
Does anyone complain? Balk? Does the city council have to meet in order for the process to get started? Are motions tabled? Hearings rescheduled and rescheduled? Are funds a problem? Does Ty ever have an issue with a surely Alderperson? A not-on-board banker? Maybe that’s why it’s taking 13 million minutes, give or take.
I am throwing down the gauntlet. Ty, if you are reading this: here’s the challenge. You. Your team. Come into my neck of the woods and give it the once over. Re-do the main drag (we’ve even got a plan . . . it was supposed to be done in 2007, then ’08, then the City promised in ’09 and with the Stimulus money we thought it was a done deal, but, no. For some reason, it wasn’t “shovel ready.” Hell, I’ve got a shovel. I’m ready.)
Or . . . you pick the street and landscape the heck out of it. Every yard. Every house. Both sides of the street.
Come on, Ty one on! I dare you.
