Tarrant County Couple Wins "Extreme Makeover" Home
By ANDREA JARES
ajares@star-telegram.com
Ever wondered what it’s like to be on the set of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition"? Andrea Jares will Twitter as the show’s cast builds a new home in far north Fort Worth, starting Wednesday morning. Follow it at
twitter.com/andreajares.
Amber and Peter Augustin of far north Fort Worth are known to many in the community as people who often give of themselves, without asking anything in return.
Amber’s ministry, Tiny Works of Heart, takes photographs of premature babies. She has been known to leave in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to take pictures of a baby who might not make it through the night.
Peter volunteers through Habitat for Humanity, even when his own home is unlivable.
Those are some of the reasons that dozens of people rallied around the family to replace their flood-ravaged home with a new one from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The host of the ABC television show, Ty Pennington, along with members of Arlington-based Wall Homes, surprised the family of five with a knock on their door just after 9 a.m. Monday.
"We don’t have to wonder about what we’re going to do anymore," Amber Augustin said Monday. "I think we’ve just been in such limbo for a year and a half that it’s going to be such a heavy burden lifted." Over the next week, while the family vacations in Hawaii, hundreds of volunteers and professionals will descend on the lot off Keller-Hicks Road in unincorporated Tarrant County to build a new home.
Among the volunteers will be members of her church, The Met Church in Keller, which helped sponsor a letter-writing campaign and helped the Augustins shoot a video asking the show to build a house for them.
The Augustins’ home was severely damaged in a flood in June 2007, and local officials said it would have to be raised more than a foot before they could move back in.
Amber Augustin said that wasn’t a feasible option while they still had a mortgage.
The Augustins bought the home 12 years ago as a fixer-upper, spending most of their weekends on renovation work. Now the home is "pretty much gutted," and they are paying living expenses in two homes — the unlivable house and a town home they are renting in the Crawford Farms subdivision, Amber Augustin said.
Frenzied support Church members who were already impressed with the family’s extensive volunteer work suggested that the Augustins apply to Extreme Makeover, said Mackenzie Wesley, a junior at Faith Christian School in Grapevine, who is in Amber Augustin’s church group. The group was moved by Amber’s photography ministry, as well as her work in the church and community.
"We just always thought that was something special," Wesley said. "We thought, 'Who better than Amber to get this?’ " The church members prayed, wrote letters and cheered as the family moved through the selection process. By the time they were selected Monday, some of the church members said they felt like they themselves had won a home. "From a Christian perspective, this is a complete answer to prayers. We prayed from Day One. For me, this is an absolute miracle," said Jessie Beebe of north Fort Worth, a friend and fellow church member who helped film the video appealing to the show.
Other friends sharing the excitement Monday were Jeff and Donna Brooks of Euless, who met the Augustins under the most somber of circumstances. Amber Augustin arrived at the hospital just before their son Wyatt was born. She stayed the night to get perfect photos. Her skill and respect in taking them made the baby look as if he were just sleeping, not dead.
"The pictures have brought us a lot of comfort and healing," Donna Brooks said. "Because that’s the only day we had with our son. And she captured that moment."
What’s ahead The construction crews will build the Augustins’ home between Wednesday and Monday. The episode featuring the Augustins will air in February or March.
Before a stretch Excursion limousine took the family away for their vacation, Amber Augustin said she is glad the show will bring attention to premature infants. She is also glad the new home will bring some peace to their lives.
Steve Wall, founder of Wall Homes, said that when the show called asking for help with the project, he quickly knew it was something he wanted his company to do. The excitement has spread not only to his employees, but to his company’s subcontractors too.
"All of our people want to volunteer during their time off," Wall said. "We’ll have a lot of people who are kind of taking this on as a second job."
How to help Building a home for the Augustin family will require hundreds of volunteers, as well as donated items from patio furniture to drapery hardware. Find out more about how to donate time or goods at extreme.wall.com.
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