Singer-songwriter Rocky Votolato and his wife, April, live in a cramped Seattle apartment with their two children, but they’ve made the best of it.
“They’ve approached their living situation as, `We have each other, we have a family, and that’s all that really matters,'” says April’s sister, Kylisa Howard.
Well, maybe not. The Votolato family was one of several recipients chosen by the weekly “HomeTeam” series to become first-time homeowners. Along with host Troy McClain (a first-season contestant of “The Apprentice” who was called a “loose cannon”), their friends and extended family members shop for the perfect house and help fix it up, all unbeknownst to the couple — sort of.
Even though the show says that “unsuspecting” people are “surprised” with a down payment and a year’s worth of mortgage payments, the new homeowners aren’t chosen as randomly as it sounds. They have to apply online (or be nominated), explaining why “HomeTeam” should assist in the quest for homeownership.
In the Votolatos’ episode, Rocky has to be clued in that he and April have been picked because there aren’t enough friends and family members to carry out the design plans. So, after a poorly executed ruse during which Rocky thinks he’s performing a corporate gig, he’s informed of the news and asked to round up some buddies for hard labor. “What was supposed to be minor aesthetics is now a major construction site,” McClain explains.
Thankfully, the house is not an ostentatious McMansion overshadowing its neighbors. The modest, single-family home resembles others on the block, and looks new with a paint job and the addition of a deck and garden. Rocky entrusts his family and friends with $5,000 he receives for furniture and other accessories. They have to finish the project in two days, a time period that has become the genre standard for creating false drama.
More theatrics come in the form of April’s “adopted” father, Tom Lundstedt, who sincerely wants to lend a hand. But his rambling, busybody antics reduce him to a caricature of Homer Simpson’s dad. “I’m at the age now,” Lundstedt muses, “if I get tired, I’ll put the [paint]brush in a plastic bag, and I take a nap.”
Most irksome is the soundtrack: Album titles and performers’ names — including Rocky’s — pop up continuously on the lower corner of the screen. The music is needless, and the inclusion of Rocky’s work makes the episode look like a commercial for his CDs.
And there is the backstory: April’s biological parents died when she was very young, and after living with her grandmother, she left home at age 13. At 16, she became a single mom.
“Their lives are going to change forever,” McClain says merrily of the couple’s impending state of homeownership. Maybe so, but that won’t erase April’s childhood or give Rocky a multimillion-dollar recording deal.
At the beginning of the show, McClain says “HomeTeam” is “where we deliver the American dream.” When Rocky takes April and the kids to the new house, their reaction is quasi-spiritual.
The series isn’t nearly as obnoxious as “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” which “HomeTeam” is clearly modeling. But the question remains whether a difficult life qualifies or prepares anyone for homeownership — especially when the heating bill comes.
“HomeTeam” airs Sundays on WCIU-Ch. 26.
———-
Carmel Carrillo is assistant editor of Real Estate. You may contact her at ccarrillo@tribune.com, or write to her at Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611.
