Members of MSU’s School of Planning, Design and Construction (SPDC) were on the site helping put the finishing touches on the home during the late morning. Miquel Kauppi and Meghan Rafferty, both interior design juniors, were members of the SPDC team at the site.

“It’s not really, ‘Oh, this is going to look good on our resume,’” Rafferty said. “It’s more of, ‘What can we do for them?’ instead of ourselves.”

Kauppi and Rafferty were spectators for the unveiling due to the fact the SPDC team had an overwhelming number of volunteers. Kauppi said being involved with the team working on the site was gratifying because of the scale and popularity of the show.

The show’s cast worked throughout the morning to keep the large crowd entertained as setting up for the unveiling took about two and a half hours longer than expected.

Pennington made his first appearance around 11:30 a.m., running out of the house into an Art Van Furniture truck, beginning to hand furniture to the volunteers gathered below. Hemmis went around the edges of the barricades separating spectators from Eifert Road, giving hugs and thanking people for coming out.

At around 3:30 p.m., the Nickless family finally arrived home and with one last, loud shout of “Move that bus!” from the crowd, Arlene Nickless and her three sons saw the dream home that had been built for them in under one week.

After a few minutes, the Nickless boys sprinted up the sidewalk into their new house as their mother leaned on Pennington for support.

The crowd, some of which arrived at 6:30 a.m. to see the revealing, cheered as loud as they had all week when the family stopped on the front porch to take one final breath before walking into their brand new home.