Kitchen makeover motivates recovery from illness

Niantic's Shaw Remodeling and Channel 8 have partnered to create "Fix My House," a scaled-down Connecticut version of the popular reality ABC TV show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

"Extreme Makeover" is hosted by "celebrity carpenter" Ty Pennington. He and a team of hundreds rebuild an entire house for a family in need (selected from thousands of entries from across the U.S.) in just one week.

"Fix My House" brings the same concept down to a community level, where the odds are much better for a Connecticut family to "win" a makeover. Local businesses pitch in goods and services to make their dream a reality.

The first "Fix My House" project - a total kitchen renovation headed up by Colin Shaw, owner of Shaw Remodeling, along with a team of four - was completed in less than four weeks.

Channel 8 reviewed more than 900 entries consisting of kitchen photos and essays explaining why the writer or someone he or she knew deserved a kitchen makeover. After narrowing submissions down to eight finalists, Colin Shaw picked three finalists and selected Bob and Carolyn Maroney of North Branford. The couple's new kitchen was revealed on WTNH's "CT Style" earlier this month.

Shaw says it was a very difficult selection process as "the finalists were all great." It really came down to how genuine and heartfelt Bob Maroney's essay was, he says.

"Bob's wife, Carolyn, who he describes as his hero, has medical issues, and Bob wanted her to have a brand new kitchen," Shaw explains. "They were so deserving of this remodel, and we were happy we could do it for them."

Bob Maroney saw the "Fix My House" contest on the WTNH website and decided to enter it for his wife, who he felt was a worthy candidate for the kitchen remodel due to her "positive and optimistic attitude, despite all the challenges life has given her."

The Maroneys had their house built in 1983 and weren't able to afford a long overdue kitchen remodel.

Bob (who's now employed) had been laid off for over a year. Carolyn, who has suffered from a rare autoimmune disease for 15 years, had recently been quite ill.

Everything was going haywire in the kitchen. The dishwasher had broken down on Carolyn's birthday when she was just coming home from a hospital stay. The faucet in the sink was leaking. The refrigerator was making noises that kept them up at night.

"And we had almost no cabinet space," Bob says. "Carolyn loves to cook and had all kinds of copper pans but no place to put them. She has to use a walker to get around now, and there wasn't room to (maneuver the walker) in the kitchen."

Shaw and his team gutted the entire kitchen and then opened up the existing space by taking down old shelving units and extending the length of the base cabinets, which then increased the length of the countertop.

All the old appliances were replaced with new ones and relocated to use the space more efficiently. A table in the middle of the kitchen that was taking up a lot of space was removed. Track lighting substituted for single light fixtures, providing better, brighter overall lighting. A window over the sink overlooking a wooded backyard was replaced, bringing in more outdoor light.

Shaw points out that new Viking cabinets, in a warmer, deeper finish than the old cabinets, work well with the kitchen's natural light and high ceilings.

"The kitchen has a fresher, cleaner contemporary look," he says.

One thing the makeover did not include was to make the kitchen handicap accessible.

This was at the Maroney's request.

"It's much more efficient for her now, but we didn't want to make it handicap accessible because we wanted her to think about getting better - for it to be a big boost to her trying to get well," Bob explains. "My wife loves to cook. It's the thing she's missed the most. This is giving her new incentive to get up every day and keep a positive attitude about getting better.

"Working with Colin was unbelievable - I can't say enough about him and his workers," Bob adds. "They worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. some days and were very respectful of my wife."

"Carolyn was inspiring the whole time," Shaw says. "She'd come out of the bedroom and talk to us. She's such an uplifting individual. Her spirits were phenomenal, even with what she's going through."

Shaw, who has done other pro bono projects for Habitat of Humanity and for the local school system in his town of Old Lyme, says he absolutely loved doing the makeover - even with the intense schedule of turning a whole kitchen around in such a small time frame.

Shaw and Channel 8 are talking about doing another "Fix My House" makeover for another yet-to-be-determined room.

Meanwhile, the Maroneys are thrilled to have a new refrigerator that doesn't keep them up at night, and just a few days after the renovation, with the help of her devoted husband, Carolyn made her first meal in the new kitchen.

"I never thought we'd get a kitchen like this," Bob says. "It's exciting for her - and me."