Rib Hillis

Rib Hillis shows he's a man with good hands and a good heart

Rib Hillis has gone from being a doctor to a carpenter. While the former was make-believe, the latter is definitely for real. The former Port Charles hunk - he played Dr. Jake Marshak in the late '90s - is the newest designer on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He made his appearance early this month, and already the experience has impacted his life.

Rib's latest job, as he explains to me, is "a good match. I am comfortable in front of the camera and I love to work with my hands. But this show is not just about building a house. This is a story about a family. There is a lot that does not involve picking up a tool."

While building a house might not be as glamourous as starring in a daytime soap, it definitely has its plusses. "This is a learning experience," Rib says. "But it is definitely exhausting. This is the hardest work I've ever done, but it's also the most rewarding."

fearless leader

Those who follow the show know that each week, the designers and carpenters of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, led by their fearless leader Ty Pennington, refurbish and add on to the house of a needy family to make it bigger and better suited to their needs. Sometimes it is necessary to completely demolish the house and start from scratch.

Once the demolition starts, it takes approximately four and a half days to completely renovate and rebuild the family's house. And once that rebuilding starts, it's pretty much nonstop until the family comes home. However, sometimes inclement weather shows the builders who's boss.

Rib recounts an incident that happened a few weeks ago in Wyoming during filming: "Everything that we build to go inside the house is built outside in a tent we call 'Art World'. There was this huge storm, with golf-ball size hail, and it crushed the tent, knocking it down, with everything that we had made inside of it exposed to the storm. All of my stuff got soaked. So, I got in early the next morning and started drying it out. That's all you can do. Mother nature wins every time."

red-paint handprints

However, knock on wood, the team always gets the house together on time. "We've still been working as the family has been pulling up. I remember we had just built something for this family in Maryland, and we got finished by the skin of our teeth. Paint was literally drying as they were coming into the room. We had redone the little boy's room with a red fire engine painted on the wall, and as they were coming in we told him that the paint was still wet and not to touch it.

"Of course," Rib laughs, "with him being a little kid, the first thing he did was touch it and smear red-paint handprints everywhere. But that was OK, because it's his room now."

Beginning November 25, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will begin airing a two-part episode to celebrate building a new house for its 100th family. The Swenson-Lee family of Minnetonka, Minn., received the wonderful news that Ty, Rib and the rest of the Makeover gang would be building them their new dream home. Don't miss this very special two-part episode on ABC. Check your local listings for more details.

- Cindy Elavsky