'Extreme Makeover' Contractor Takes His Craft Back to Foothills

Days are much slower now for contractor David Bohler. After spending nine months out the year for the last six years building homes at a feverish pace on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Bohler is finally back to his Glendora home for good.

The 33-year-old Glendora resident was the head contractor behind the hit ABC show with design celebrities Ty Pennington, Paige Hemmis, Michael Maloney, Ed Sanders and Paul DiMeo.

Through six seasons, Bohler supervised the construction of brand new homes for families in need across the nation – each project built within a 106-hour time frame.

A normal home construction, said Bohler, takes six months.

Before leading construction crews on the show, Bohler was a contractor with his own company. On a whim, he decided to volunteer on an Extreme Makeover episode in Arizona. Afterwards, show producers asked him to stay on as the Director of Construction.

Bohler spent the next six years on the road, living out of hotels and production trailers for nine months out of the year across 48 states. Even when sleep deprived – Bohler said on one project, he went 62 hours without sleep – the motivation to give back to a family in need was always worth the frenetic rush.

“We designed a house specifically for each family,” said Bohler. “We were doing something that would make that family’s life better, and on each project there would be thousands of people coming by the set to cheer us on.”

On one episode, crews arrived in Peoria, Indiana to build a new home for Jake, a boy suffering from dwarfism and brittle bone disease, and his family.

By the time Jake was eight years old, he had broken 50 bones in his body.

“Against all odds, he was the happiest guy out there,” said Bohler. “He really reminded us what all of this was all about. He reminded us to make the best with what you have.”

Construction crews built specialized rooms for Jake, including a floor-level bed for Jake to easily climb into, and shelves, sinks and other utilities all within an arm’s reach of 18 inches.

After 200 episodes, Extreme Makeover taped its final episode in Joplin, Missouri last year, where Bohler and construction crews built seven homes in seven days for the tornado-ravaged city.

During his time on Extreme Makeover, Bohler and crews also built new firehouses, schools, soup kitchens, Little League fields, churches, food and clothing shelters, summer camps, community centers, parks, homeless shelter, among other projects.

Life without the production crews is taking Bohler some time to get used to.

Not that he isn’t keeping busy, since wrapping the final season of Extreme Makeover, Bohler has relaunched his construction company Bohler’s Builders Group in Glendora. 

Applying his experiences on Extreme Makeover, Bohler said he builds each project in extremely quick time frames, but with quality care. A recent project was what Bohler calls the “Weekend Bath” – a four-day bathroom remodel.

Bohler also said he intends to continue taking part in build projects helping families in need around the foothill area.
“Being on Extreme Makeover taught me a lot about time management,” said Bohler. “You can complete a project much faster than people expect. You need to do whatever it takes to get it done.”