Home demolition is bittersweet for family

Building the house will take 106 hours from start to finish.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- As the excavator's giant claw took its initial gouge out of Jeff and Jackie Novak's first house, spectators cheered and family members cried.
The house is full of memories, said Gerry Morley, mother of Jackie Novak, who died on Mother's Day of this year of a blood clot on the lung.
Her death left her husband, Jeff, to raise the couple's three daughters, Zoey, 6; Harley, 2; and Presley, 6 months.
Morley, her remaining two daughters, Jennifer Amendola and Suzanne Zupko, and Jeff Novak's mother, Mary Lou, all of Boardman, hugged one another closely as equipment from the A.P. O'Horo Company of Liberty reduced the home to rubble in minutes.
The Novaks lived in the three-bedroom house on Arlene Avenue for nearly three years.
The house was demolished Friday morning to make way for a new house by ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." TC Quality Homes of Canfield is the lead builder on the project.
The Novak house, which suffers from sewage backup in the basement during heavy rain, was picked after the couple's oldest daughter and a co-worker of Jeff's both wrote letters to the show.
The project will take 106 hours from start to finish. The new house will be completed by Wednesday when Jeff Novak and his daughters return from a Florida vacation paid for by the network.
'Emotional day'
"It's bittersweet," said Anthony Amendola of Boardman, who is married to Jackie's sister Jennifer. "It's an emotional day for all of us."
The family is happy that Jeff and the girls are getting a new, improved house, but they'd gladly give that up to have Jackie back, he said.
The couple loved the ABC show and watching it the night she died was the last thing they did together, Amendola said.
Hundreds of people filled the street Friday to watch the action and cheer for its stars, especially Ty Pennington.
One of the show's designers, Paige Hemmis, was on hand to sign autographs for the crowd and visit Felicia Reed, 14, of North Jackson.
Felicia's mother, Ann, wheeled Felicia, who uses a wheelchair, to the site, and Louise Harper of Vienna, a relative of a WYTV cameraman, ushered the girl and her mother to Hemmis, who greeted the girl with a hug
Felicia cried.
"She's just so happy," her mother said.
Ushering in the workers
About 9 a.m., roughly 50 motorcycles roared down the short street to the house, followed by a sea of professional workers and volunteers, all in blue shirts and yellow hard hats, to begin the demolition. Then came the heavy equipment.
The Novak house marks the 50th home that KraftMaid Cabinetry of Middlefield, Geauga County, has been involved with through "Extreme Makeover," said Kim Boos, KraftMaid's marketing manager.
The show's producer approached KraftMaid when he was pitching the idea for the series to the network. The Middlefield cabinetmaker has been involved with the show ever since.
"We asked them to try to find a house in Northeast Ohio," Boos said. "We're thrilled that they're here."
Boos and Traci Kloos, senior designer with KraftMaid, have traveled to some of the shows in other cities, but having it in Northeast Ohio allows many of the factory's employees to see one of the houses where their handiwork is being installed.
Some KraftMaid employees will be at the site in the wee hours Sunday, helping with the work.
"One thing that's neat about the show is to see the neighbors and the community pull together to make a difference for this family and to give them a fresh start," Boos said. "We're glad to be a part of that. It's all about the families."