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EXTREME MAKEOVER: Home Edition

Extreme Makeover Huber Family House Tour

When Cosentino called to ask if we would be willing to help fabricate and install the Silestone countertops for an Extreme Makeover: Home Edition project in Wisconsin, the answer was an immediate “Absolutely!”

We called Todd Stevenson, the Extreme Project Manager, who gave us the general information: “It’s a home near Superior, Wisconsin. We will have a trade meeting in three days.  The pep rally is in one week and, in two weeks you’ll be installing the countertops for the kitchen and the multipurpose room.”  Anticipating that our lead time should be considerably shorter than usual, I asked how many days we would be allowed for our fabrication. “Well, you will not have exactly days, ” Todd said, “you will have a few hours only.” ‘This will be some experience’ I thought with a mix of excitement and panic, because it normally takes us days to measure, fabricate and install.

However, this was a unique opportunity. We had a company meeting and carefully planned our strategy to prepare in advance and minimize any unfortunate incident at the jobsite, taking in consideration that Superior is around five hours away from our shop, and that this was an uncommon situation.

We put together the Ultimate AMC team.  Our Fantastic Four.  Axel was the project manager, directing every move.  Tom coordinated with the trades that had to link with our installation: the cabinet guys, the plumber, the appliances.  Using his great knowledge of cabinets and countertops, he created the fabrication drawing from the blueprints provided to us. Rodrigo coordinate the fabrication and had all materials, tools and fabricated tops ready, including a couple of extras, ‘just in case’. Hugo, our master installer and fabricator, showed off his incredible skill and experience at the site.

Howie Huber is a firefighter everyone loves in his community.  He has risked his life to save others many times.  He often feared that the 911 call could be his own house burning, in such bad condition it was.  With her wife and two young kids, he had bought an old farm house thinking they could both work on it to repair it, but then they found they couldn’t afford to fix it.  The Mayor of Superior nominated Howie for an Extreme Makeover.  Humbly, did Howie accept the nomination, but having a hard time accepting such an incredible act of generosity, as his dad, Pete Huber, told us later. 

Howie’s old house demolition started on a Wednesday and had to be done and delivered the next Monday.  Barely five and a half days to have it built and ready!  Our appointment was Saturday at 10am to measure the cabinets.  Our installation time was to be no later than 5pm the same day.  In reality, we started checking the already-made templates at noon.  Tom made the minor adjustments to the templates and Hugo did the modifications to the tops with incredible speed and precision. Only two hours later, the Four started carrying the tops in and installing them to be done at 8pm. 

The best experience was working in a true team environment with dozens of people at the same time. Everyone had the same goal, a great attitude and happily helped each other with a smile. That is the perfect formula for teamwork. And we had the chance to be part of it.