Updated at 3:09 p.m., Thursday, June 14, 2007
New 'Extreme' home 'too beautiful' to live in
By Tiffany Hill
Advertiser Staff Writer
"It's too beautiful, it's like staying in a hotel, somebody else's hotel, a really nice hotel," said Akana today at a news conference.
Akana, her husband Ben, and their two daughters and sons will spend the very first night tonight in their new 3,500-square-foot house in Kalihi.
The family was chosen as the 100th build of ABC TV's reality-series Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and returned yesterday from a vacation in Whistler, British Columbia. Awaiting them was their dark green plantation-style house, next door to a 4,500-square-foot community center, housing the non-profit, Keiki O Ka Aina.
"In my wildest dreams this is exactly what I wanted but nothing that I could have dreamt it would be. When they said what kind of home do you want and I said a local-looking house, I didn't know what I meant, but that's what I meant," said Akana pointing past a huge tree sheltering her and her family from the rain up the hill to the house. "This is exactly everything we've always wanted and more."
"We were nervous and anxious but that Extreme Makeover had something very special for us," said Ben Akana
After the numerous interviews scheduled with ABC are over, the family plans to finally begin moving in.
"Everything in there is brand-spanking new...I think they took a little bit of our clothes [to the new house] but that's it," said Akana, adding that they will be making a lot of trips back and forth to move all their belongings from their old house, which is nearby, to the new house.
The Akana family project was the first in which the TV show built both a home and a community center within 7 days.
Thousands of volunteers donated their time and supplies to finish the build, working around the clock. The Kalihi family's house will be the fifth season two-hour premiere for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition to be aired at the end of September.