MEDFORD, Ore. – A year ago, the McPhail Family saw their “Extreme Home” for the first time. 365 days later, the home, inside and out, looks about the same.

Although, Lindsay McPhail tells NewsWatch12 that with three young boys, the house has lost a little of its “Extreme Home Makeover” shine. She said sometimes, it still doesn’t seem real. However, gadgets that came with the Extreme Makeover house, like a Dutch Bros cappuccino machine, haven’t lost their appeal.

This year, Lindsay and her mom, Cindy Conner, are inviting the public to the land to take part in the First Annual Vintage Fair At Barnstormer Farm. About 30 vendors will be offering antique and vintage style home goods. The sale runs tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Admission is $5 or $3 with a canned food item. Kids 12 and under are free. There will also be a raffle benefiting Hope Equestrian that helps kids with special needs and service members suffering from PTSD.

There will be no tours of the Extreme Home.

By Steven Sandberg

MEDFORD, Ore. — Last fall, the community came together to build the McPhail family a brand new house. Now that same community and family are using that experience to try to help others all the way across the Pacific.

When the Extreme Makeover crew the McPhail family the keys to their new home, CJ McPhail promised he would pay it forward. Now he’s getting the chance.

“It doesn’t stop there,” C.J. says. “When you do something that magnificent and that beautiful and that incredible, big things continue to happen.”

CJ McPhail is traveling with Rush Behnke, the home’s lead designer, to Kona, Hawaii to construct buildings for the University of Nations.

“All of the staff are volunteers, and they’re missionaries, and so they have to raise their own support,” Behnke explains.

The two men say they have plenty of inspiration from the groups of volunteers who came to help Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build the McPhail’s home.

“Southern Oregon, Northern California, the thousands of volunteers have been a part of the inspiration to build these new buildings for the University of Nations,” says CJ.

Rush Behnke says the experience of building the McPhail home cemented the value of paying that service forward and he hopes to bring more workers from Southern Oregon to Hawaii for the project and share the ability to helps others, after being helped so much.

If you would like to get involved in the project, you can log on to KonaSummerSurge.com for more information.

In early September 2011, a Medford family who had done so much for the community got the makeover of a lifetime. ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition came to Southern Oregon to give a home makeover to the McPhail Family, who live near Medford.

The McPhails were recommended to the TV show by a close friend, Matt Sampson, who was involved in Sparrow Clubs, an organization that recruits local school students to help other children suffering from severe medical problems. A huge part of why the McPhails were chosen for Extreme Makeover is their role in Sparrow Clubs.

In addition to Sparrow’s Club, the McPhails also hope to raise awareness about autism. Two of the McPhail children have autism and their new Makeover home is designed to help accommodate the boys’ sensory and development needs.

Thousands of Southern Oregon volunteers pledged their time and effort to make the Extreme Makeover a success. Different volunteers listed a number of different reasons to sign up for the Extreme project. Some were fans of the show, some watched other volunteers and wanted to get involved, others just wanted to give back to the community. Some volunteers were unemployed and said it felt good to volunteer. The construction site saw more than 3,000 volunteers over the course of the week.

Ark Built Construction led the quick build and designed the home for the family, while the majority of what fills the inside of the McPhails’ new home is from Gates Furnishings in Grants Pass. Everyone involved worked to create a custom home with a special touch for the McPhails. A lookout tower was welded together over several weeks at Pro Weld. It was escorted down Highway 62, before being perched high above the home.

Between restaurants, windows, plumbing, excavation, and everything else, it’s estimated that more than 500 businesses donated their time, talents, and supplies. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on it, but at least one and a half million dollars was donated through man-hours and resources from local companies.

The McPhail family says they are still getting used to living life as some kind of celebrities. So if people want to stop by and take a look at the house, they say they’re okay with that. After what the community did for them in building a new home, the McPhails say they will be forever grateful.

Unfortunately, the McPhails will be one of the last families to receive help from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. ABC announced in 2011 that the TV show was being cancelled; the last episodes aired in January 2012.

View NewsWatch12′s special coverage of the Extreme Makeover event in Southern Oregon in the video below:

By Steven Sandberg

MEDFORD, Ore. — As we’ve seen, every effort of the Extreme Makeover, from the project leads, volunteers, and community, has gone toward one purpose: helping the McPhail family.

All of their hard work has allowed C.J., Lindsey and their three children to move into an incredible house. This wasn’t just the building of a new house; it was a television event, with TV cameras everywhere. The entire community stopped by to help, or just to look.

The McPhail family says despite all the amazing features this house has, one month after moving in, the most incredible thing is that they already feel at home. For the entire home’s perks, the most popular features are a big yard to play in and a bucket on a pulley.

“It’s kind of like Christmas time, you get your kids this great present and all they do is play with the box,” says C.J. McPhail.

It shows their three children are comfortable, and now, a month after the TV cameras left, so are C.J. and Lindsay.

“The last week, as kids get fingerprints on everything, it’s started to feel more and more like home, definitely,” Lindsay said.

A big adjustment is handling their sudden fame, and the fans it brings to their doorstep.

“We have up to 100 cars per day right now,” C.J. noted.

So much that the family put up a sign out front, saying people can look at the house, just at a safe distance. They say it’s a small price to pay.

“I’m so proud and thankful that the community has been so wonderful about that. We get to live here now, in this kind of a dream, and that it’s so personal, and that it was designed so perfectly for us,” said C.J.

Perfect for the children, two of whom have been diagnosed with autism. Different features were built with the boys’ autism in mind, like a shallow stream.

“Just walking to the creek is like a therapeutic experience,” said Lindsay.

They say the greatest experience, is living in something is something built just for them by a group of people wanting to give back.

“This is the home the community built,” C.J. affirmed.

The McPhail family says they are still getting used to living life as some kind of celebrities. So if people want to stop by and take a look at the house, they say they’re okay with that. After what the community did for them in building a new home, the McPhails say they will be forever grateful.

By Sharon Ko & KDRV Staff

MEDFORD, Ore. — Many of the volunteers were out of work when they signed up to help out.

Thousands of volunteers helped build the McPhails home, but Ron Register put the Extreme Makeover Project before his own endeavors.

“It’s such a good feeling to help, and to be out working and to be doing what I do,” Register explained.

During the time Ron Register volunteered he was looking for a job himself, but says volunteering came easy. It’s the first time he’s ever volunteered and says he’s glad his skills were put to use.

“A guy would ask, ‘what is that for?’ And I’d say: Just pay attention, you’ll see.”

Register has built houses for many years, doing everything from building the frame of house to concrete floors, but he still can’t find a job that will utilize his skills. “Helping buddies here and there, doing a little this and that, but nothing real steady,” he says.

Register says there are already other volunteer projects in the works. “I think that’d be cool, I’m all in.”

By Erin Maxson, Danielle Craig & KDRV Staff

MEDFORD, Ore. — A huge part of why the McPhails were chosen for Extreme Makeover is their role in Sparrow Clubs.

The organization started in Southern Washington in 1992 with a little boy who had weeks to live and high school student named Dameon. Dameon donated $60 toward Michael Leeland’s $200,000 surgery costs and that inspired Michael’s father to start Sparrow Clubs. Nearly 10 years later, C.J McPhail opened the Southern Oregon chapter, never thinking it would lead to this.

“To know that we got to be a part of something that really, truly highlighted them and showed the depth of what they do in our community and in other communities around the nation, it’s really exciting,” said Matt Sampson, the coordinator of Southern Oregon Sparrow Clubs.

The recession hit Sparrow Clubs hard. Once in 25 states, a strategic move scaled the program back three years ago, but it’s now growing again, and in a very big way. When Extreme Makeover producers asked Matt Sampson to help set up a Sparrow Club in Hawaii, he was skeptical.

“Well, I don’t know. We don’t have any relationships over there. It can take some time and we only have a week to pull this off. I really don’t think we can do it,” said Sampson.

Nonetheless, Extreme Makeover went to extremes to get it done and a little boy named Dustin is now Hawaii’s first Sparrow. Island Pacific Academy is thrilled to be a part of organization. C.J. McPhail and Dustin’s parents met with the students in Hawaii and Island Pacific is confident supporting the family won’t be a problem.

It’s all part of a legacy that started with a young man who emptied his savings account and created legacy that now has wings.

Both Sparrow Clubs and Families For Communities received $8,000, which was extra money from the Family Build Fund. An Extreme fundraising effort was made by lots of local business like Airport Chevy and Ark Built, raising a total $106,000 and, of course, all the community members who did their part to provide the family with a trust of $50,000. That money is expected to cover the McPhails household bills, allowing them to pay the property taxes, which will begin next year.

By Kaylin Krashesky & KDRV Staff

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — While the McPhails were content to live in their old house, they were ecstatic to live in the new home planned for them by the Makeover team.

The majority of what fills the inside of the McPhails’ new home is from Gates Furnishings in Grants Pass.

“Oh gosh, everything from mattresses to sofas to coffee tables to chandeliers to you know almost all the home furnishings they were able to get here,” said the owner of Gates Home Furnishing, Giff Gates.

Design producers from the show came up in advance to work with the business. Gates said he set up a budget of around $20,000, but he says the Extreme Makeover designers needed around $50,000. So, Gates got key vendors to pitch in so they could give the designers everything they needed for the inside of the McPhails home.

“They put together things that honestly we didn’t think of. They would mix things…very rustic things with very contemporary things and so we learned a lot by doing it. It was fun, I mean they have a lot of talent,” Gates said.

Gates says the designers, both on camera and off, worked hard to make the inside really feel like home to the McPhails. After talking with the designers about their dream home, the McPhails were sent off to Hawaii on vacation, and the family had no idea what was happening at the site of their new home.

“We wish we could have been here, or at least been a fly on the wall, to have seen this take place,” said C.J. McPhail.

By Bryan Navarro & KDRV Staff

MEDFORD, Ore. — Ark Built Construction led the quick build and designed the home for the family, but also for the cameras.

“We got the design finished and then we got the comment: ‘well that won’t work from the bus view.’ As a designer, we’d never heard that before,” explained Ken Snelling with Ark Built.

Everyone involved worked to create a custom home with a special touch for the McPhails. A lookout tower was welded together over several weeks at Pro Weld. It was escorted down Highway 62, before being perched high above the home.

“I felt like I had just won a trip to Hawaii, because everything fit and all the pressure was off,” said Jim Oberlander of Pro-Weld.

While the pressure was off of Pro-Weld, there were still lots of work to do otherwise. Excavators were used on site where more than 3,000 builders and volunteers worked at least 50,000 hours. Without the show’s strict timeline, this project likely would have taken nine months to a year.

“Just being able to produce such a wonderful project in 5-and-a-half days is quite a miracle,” said Rush Behnke with Ark Built.

Ark Built says the work brought out the best of the best from the Rogue Valley.

“We got to work with all these subs that normally compete against themselves, but now we’re all working as one big team. That had just won a championship. We felt like doing a good job for such a good family was a huge accomplishment,” said Snelling.

Between restaurants, windows, plumbing, excavation, and everything else, it’s estimated that more than 500 businesses donated their time, talents, and supplies. It’s hard to put a dollar amount on it, but at least one and a half million dollars was donated through man-hours and resources from local companies.

By Yessenia Anderson & KDRV Staff

MEDFORD, Ore. — The McPhails gratitude stems from thousand and thousand of hours of generosity. A few of the volunteers that NewsWatch 12 spoke to say despite all the hard work, they would do it all over again.

Different volunteers listed a number of different reasons to sign up for the Extreme project. Some were fans of the show, some watched other volunteers and wanted to get involved, others just wanted to give back to the community. The construction site saw more than 3,000 volunteers, and zero conflict.

“We had an over abundance of volunteers which is a great problem to have in a situation like that” explained Volunteer Coordinator Michelle Gordon, “To have that many people working on one project and to not have issues with personality conflicts and things like that? Amazing.”

The volunteer duties ranged from machine operators to water distributors, each one valued just the same. For Bobbi Taylor, her part in painting the McPhail boys play set was her favorite contribution.

“Thought about the kids coming out there and playing and stuff like that, so that was really exciting,” she said.

One local landscaper, Juergen Steuber, took notes from his experience. “How they arranged it all and laid it out so it was really, really unique.”

After just a few days of volunteering he said he felt he needed to do more for this deserving family. “A years free labor and maintenance for the place and that’s what I’m doing right now, maintaining the place,” Steuber said.

When asked if they would repeat the hours of labor and time devoted, they all had the same response: yes.

By Erin Maxson & KDRV Staff

MEDFORD, Ore. — Two of the McPhail boys, Sawyer and Thatcher, were diagnosed with autism. The Southern Oregon episode of “Extreme Makeover” will reveal the tools designers were able to incorporate to help the children. The McPhails now have some top of the line equipment, which will help their boys’ physical, mental and social development.

To get an idea of what Sawyer and Thatcher go through, NewsWatch 12 talked with two of Lindsay McPhails closest friends who also have children with autism.

A visit to the park for Noah Olivier would have looked very different a year and a half ago. Since his diagnosis of autism, the Oliviers incorporated all kinds of therapies, tools, and equipment.

“We have a trampoline in our front room, we have a hug pillow, tunnels that he can climb through that provide resistance seriously the list goes on and on for the different things that we’ve used,” said Noah’s mom, Heather Olivier.

Heather is a close friend with Lindsay McPhail and Emilie Sampson. The trio call themselves the “warrior mothers,” all have sons with autism. Emilie and Heather helped the producers and designers understand how to meet the needs of the McPhail boys, who are on different ends of the spectrum, but like many autistic children, they struggle with sensory overload. They can’t tune out what we can.

“It feels like you are under attack,” says Heather Oliver.

“Imagine nails on a chalkboard,” explains Emilie Sampson, “Then, having that feeling all day in their everyday life.”

In the McPhail’s new home, there is a therapy room for the boys, but the whole house is meant to be a sanctuary, to better prepare them for the rest of the world.

“When you are able to meet those sensory needs for your child, not only does it make life for your child so much easier but also the whole family dynamic can change and it can be a healthier place for your whole family,” says Sampson.