ShawneeDispatch.com

Two area businesses helped to make a Kansas City, North, family's dream house come true last week.

Artistic Design Lawn and Landscaping of Shawnee, and Coleman Equipment of Bonner Springs lent their services and equipment to the effort to build a new home for the Jacobo family at the site of their old house, at 4132 N. Spruce Ave., Kansas City, Mo. The 5,000-square-foot house was built in seven days last week for an episode of the ABC television series "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," replacing the Jacobos' 900-square-foot abode.

Artistic Design, 6411 Vista Dr., is located in Shawnee's Attic Business Park on Shawnee Mission Parkway. Coleman Equipment, 2400 W. 43rd St., is located in the Bonner Springs Industrial Park, land east of Kansas Highway 7 and south of the Kansas River. Ironically, Coleman would have been in Shawnee as well except that Bonner Springs annexed that area in the early 1980s.

The two businesses have now been on the show twice, each of them the only business of their kind to contribute to two different episode-projects. Both had also helped out when the show built a home for the Johnson family in southern Kansas City, Mo.

Dwayne Lukowski, president and co-owner of Artistic Designs, said they got involved with the makeover the first time because of their long-term relationship with Kevin Green Homes, the contractor that built both Extreme Makeover homes in the Kansas City area.

Having handled most of the company's landscaping needs, Green asked Artistic to help out with the Johnson Family home.

"You kind of didn't know what really to expect, but it was a big honor to have your builder choose you for something that is such a big project," Lukowski said.

From that first experience, Lukowski said Artistic was better able to plan for this home makeover.

"We worked it so we could carry some production on," Lukowski said. "The first time we shut down the whole company for three days."

Still, it took a lot for Artistic to get its end of the job completed. Lukowski said company employees and workers for vendors Artistic subcontracted with were on site everyday, with about 20 employees the first two days and 40 to 50 workers every day after that.

On day one, Artistic and its employees were there to help with site coordination, removing trees and doing other prep work to get the site ready for demolition. On days two and three, Artistic created a landscape design and began installing retaining walls on the sloping property for the front and back yards.

In days three and four, Artistic built the back patio and an outdoor kitchen that included a grill, refrigerator, stone countertop and fireplace. On day five, Artistic installed sprinklers, vegetation and a play set and built a front walkway.

In addition to all of this, one of Artistic's general managers was able to get a play set donated for a park about a mile away from the Jacobos' home.

On Friday the site at 4132 Spruce was an anthill of activity, with hundreds of volunteers and security personnel plus construction equipment and supplies in motion all around the mostly finished house, as sightseers watched from behind barricades on yards across the street.

John Coleman, sales consultant and son of Coleman Equipment co-owner Bruce Coleman, visited the site each day to watch the rapid progress of construction and the roughly $200,000 worth of equipment the Bonner Springs business lent Artistic for the landscaping.

Coleman Equipment provided to Artistic Design two Case Skid Steer Loaders for unloading trucks and light groundwork, two Kubota Mini Excavators for work on retaining walls and the new play structure in the neighborhood park, and two Kubota RTV900 Utility Vehicles to haul staff and materials around the neighborhood.

"On the first day, I had ABC calling me, wanting more utility vehicles," Coleman said, because the Kubota RTV900 vehicles, which look like a truck combined with a golf cart, had proved so handy.

"Unfortunately, we didn't have any more," Coleman said, though he was able to find one more through another local dealer.

The equipment lent by Coleman was all new, and because of the wear and tear from last week's use, they would all be either sold as used, rented, or used as demonstration models, Coleman said.

Still, John Coleman said, the company was happy to participate in the effort.

"On projects like this, we certainly like to provide solutions," Coleman said.

Coleman described the decision to lend the equipment at no price as a business one, even though the show's producers prohibited prominent signage on the equipment -- and may even blur their logos if the small signs on the vehicles appear on camera -- so whatever exposure the Colemans get through the television episode may be incidental.

"We're hoping plenty of people see it and ask questions," John Coleman said.

But much of the reason for providing the equipment, Coleman said, was to strengthen his family's business relationship with Artistic Design. The landscaping company bought its first piece of major equipment from the Bonner Springs company two years ago after working with Coleman on the Johnson family's "Extreme Makeover" home.

After all of this work, there will be no down time for Artistic. It's the beginning of the busiest time of the year for landscape companies, and Lukowski said he was coming back to 30 messages in his office. But after seeing so many give of themselves for a family in need, Lukowski said it was worth it.

"Your company sacrifices production for it," he said, "but it's really for the family -- that's what it's all about."

One of the co-owners of Coleman equipment, Del Coleman, said the company's involvement in the project involved more than business.

"There's no immediate money reward," Coleman said, "other than some exposure. It's just one of those things -- everything there is volunteered or donated, and we rallied around their cause with them."

That cause was improving the living situation for a large family.

Jesus and Michelle Jacobo's household includes nine children -- four children of their own and five nieces and nephews they took in to keep them out of the foster care system -- plus her grandfather. In their old, much smaller house, the couple slept in an unheated garage while three of the boys lived in a basement hallway.

The tentative date for the episode to be broadcast is May 13.