Day 5: Welcome Home
It is the final day of the Habitat for Humanity's project in Lothian, Md., where all this week volunteers have been busy building a new house.
Home Improvement Expert Bob Vila shares the final results with The Early Show.
The house has been completely furnished and is now ready for homeowner Mary McGhee and her family to move in.
Thursday was really the final day for major work. Several crews performed landscaping, grading the site, spreading topsoil and laying an asphalt driveway and a concrete walk.
The appliances were delivered and installed, the floors and carpets were put down, and the furniture delivered.
Late Thursday night and into Friday morning, the furniture was moved in and arranged along with some final interior touchups.
Designing the interior of the home presented a few challenges. For starters, four generations will live under one roof.
So Gale Steves, editor-in-chief of Home magazine, worked on the interior design with Home Resource in Sarasota, Fla.
"You have to do doable decorating with ideas that you can take and make your own," Steves says.
"For a family of four, you really have to start in the main living space," she adds.
An important element is to have a color scheme running throughout to unify the space and make rooms look bigger, Steves suggests. So she picked a yellow and blue color scheme with accent colors.
And the design with a large great room - a living room with kitchen - provides a great place for the whole family to spend time together, Steves says.
Ready-to-assemble furniture, such as a TV cabinet, was also chosen; it is easy to purchase and place in the home, she adds.
So, as everything was in place, project manager Roger Belch presented Mary McGhee the house keys.
"I'm happy," she says, with tears in her eyes amid the great applause.
On behalf of The Early Show, she also receives a special gift, a swing bench for her front porch.
"Oh it's beautiful," McGhee exclaims from the inside. "Love it!"
The project has been true testament to the spirit of volunteerism. More than 300 people, both professional tradespeople and local residents, volunteered their time and efforts to raise this house in just one week.
For more on this project from The Early Show, see
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