Tears were running down Cheryl Morrisey's cheeks when she stepped into her new master bedroom, and then she broke down all over.
"It's beautiful," she said, clearly overwhelmed.
She walked into her ensuite, the first time she's had her own bathroom.
"I'm dreaming," she murmured to her four wide-eyed daughters as she poked her head in the shower.
Morrisey, a single mother, was handed the keys to her new 3,500-square-foot home in Kingsland, which is situated where the family's previous drafty 990-square-foot bungalow had been situated.
Morrisey's husband left her seven years ago with four girls to raise - the youngest was three months old at the time - and a mortgage to pay.
Morrisey, who had been a stay-at-home mom, took a job as a bus driver. Eventually she was hired by a law firm as a legal assistant, but upkeep on the home, which was already in rough shape, fell by the wayside.
She entered a Christian support program for single-parent families run by Cornerstone of Hope and became a volunteer. Soon she was babysitting for other families and taking care of seniors at a nearby longterm care facility with her daughters.
All the while, the family of five was sharing two bedrooms and one bathroom at home.
One of Morrisey's friends mentioned to Kerry Wiebe, a volunteer with the program who owns Christian Contractors, that Morrisey didn't have heat in her house.
When he went to investigate, Wiebe found a home that was beyond repair.
"I looked through the house and found mould through all the floor joists, and cold air blowing through plug-ins. The whole house hadn't had a dime spent on it since it was built some 60 years ago," said Wiebe.
"The house had been hit by lightning two or three times and the electrical and everything, it was just savage."
So Wiebe started calling his suppliers, at first thinking he could try to make some extensive repairs.
But inspired by the television show Extreme Makeover, a plan was soon hatched to knock the place down and build a new home using donations of time, money and materials.
The old house was demolished in May. Over 40 companies and hundreds of workers built the new two-storey, six-bedroom home.
Each of Morrisey's daughters - Emberlynn, 7, Delcia, 10, Cassandra, 15, and Bernice, 17 - has her own room and bathroom sink.
Wiebe estimated the total cost of the home, including furnishings, at about $600,000.
That's all been covered.
Morrisey still has about $50,000 left on her old mortgage, which she'll continue to pay, but she no longer has to worry about getting up in the middle of the night in the winter to check the boiler, "wiggling some wires" to keep it going.
"It's incredible," said Morrisey.
Wiebe said his partners have already suggested doing another home.
SMYERS@CALGARYHERALD.COM
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