Cathy Dunn and her sons were overwhelmed by the transformation of their older bungalow in just 14 days.
The Aldergrove residence had a leaky roof which had resulted in extensive black mold on interior walls, and Dunn was considering selling it as a teardown and moving elsewhere. However, two friends had nominated her for this year's Extreme Home Repair and Dunn was chosen for this year's project.
Over the past two weeks, while Dunn and sons Ian and Jamie were given a suite at a hotel, more than 200 volunteers and 120 donors provided the labour and materials for a complete makeover of the home.
Volunteers worked up to 12 hour days, six days a week, to accomplish the major transformation.
The house was gutted and new roofing and interior and exterior walls were built. The yard had a new retaining wall and landscaping installed. The furnishings and fixtures were even replaced.
On Victoria Day Monday, the Dunn family returned to their home where they were greeted by hundreds of well-wishers. Then as the crowd chanted, "Move that bus" they got their first glimpse of their renovated home. They also received a grand tour with the team from Acts of Kindness, which orchestrated the home transformation.
Acts of Kindness is an outreach program of the Aldergrove Seventh-day Adventist Church. Their pastor, Mike Dauncey said this year's project, their twelfth in the past ten years, was their most ambitious one yet. The value of the work likely exceeded $200,000.
"We felt you were the one," he told Dunn when she arrived on Monday, to cheers from the crowd. "This house was needing help."
"We were looking at selling, even though we would not have got much for it," said Dunn. "We would have had to move out of Aldergrove (to afford a replacement home) …we love this community very much and now we can stay a lot longer."
