this week on "george to the rescue." >> everything sort of deteriorated quickly. the previous owners left at the perfect time. things started rotting seemed like the day after. >> you guys are being rescued! how you doing? >> bringing everything back down. >> yep. >> cool. >> three, two, one. take it all in. >> wow. captions paid for by nbc-universal television >> this week's rescue we're helping out the brashear family. kate works for a nonprofit in

the city five days a week, and ben is a writer staying home with the kids. add a third child on the way, no space to put him in. that's where we come in. >> i'm kate. >> i'm ben. >> we live in montclair, new jersey, with our two kids and one on the way. george is 5. and louisa is 3. and we're also expecting another little boy in about a month's time who is as yet nameless. >> sharky. the kids call it. >> him. >> him. i work at a nonprofit charter school network in harlem in new york. >> and i'm a stay at home dad. i stay home with the kids. send them off to school in the morning, pick them up from school, hang out with the moms, play dates. >> do the laundry. cooking. >> laundry, cooking.

>> cleaning. >> yeah. it's all -- you know, the gender roles, like the historical gender roles are obviously kind of reversed here. it also suits me because i'm a writer and, you know, i can be home and i can work when the kids are off to school for a little while here and there and work when they go to bed and i don't need to be somewhere. it's a small house to begin with. and my office is now the new baby's room. the desk was moved out and the crib moved in, very symbolic shift, which is a little tough because i like to kind of spread my work out a bit in the office, sort of put up cards and inspirational things and, you know, new baby comes, i'm just not going to have a whole lot of time for my writing but, you know, that's part of the gig. it's not all a sob story. i mean, i'm incredibly lucky to be able to write, that kate can

earn us a great living and do some things fulfilling for her and, you know, work with this charter school and the sort of less fortunate kids. so this kid can be very fortunate. and so we feel lucky. we really do. but i'm not going to lie, it's tough. any stay at home parent would say, man or woman, it's a tough gig. when we first bought this house, the backyard was lovely. it was just -- it was beautiful. it was lush. and the only thing that wasn't was our garage. i mean, that was always really kind of gross and stinky, to be honest. the priest owners had a dog kennel they operated in there. and so it was kind of just always -- stunk. everything sort of like deteriorated quickly.

the previous owners left at the perfect time. it all just started rotting it seemed like the day after. the backyard was one of the big reasons why we bought the house. it was a pretty good sized backyard and it it really could be beautiful. but we just don't have the time, the resources really to make it beautiful. it's sad. >> i wrote to george because i really wanted ben to be rescued, to help give ben his space back and to create some space for our kids as well, to really play and enjoy, you know, this great house and this great space. >> rescuing isn't easy, but being a homemaker certainly isn't either. especially if you have two kids and a baby on the way and an old house that needs repairs. ben is being rescued. what's up, kate? how are ya?

>> i'm good! oh, my gosh. >> you guys are being rescued. >> no! >> what's up, ben? how you doing? >> oh, wow. >> your e-mail came in. it worked its way to the top of the list, you know? we are here to make your stay-at-home dad's life a little bit easier. >> this is like the best thing ever. >> well, next to having our children. >> well put. you are -- >> i'm a stay-at-home dad. >> you are a stay-at-home dad. ♪

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we are tackling this project on all fronts. our builder, our designer, tyler whistler, and landscaping, joe simeone. ready to start this rescue? >> absolutely. >> i have tons of safety gear. important to always protect your eyes, ear, and lungs. we have 3m gear for everybody here, what we need to turn an unlivable old garage into a playroom and home office. we'll start on the garage. joe, you and is the guys from simeone and sons start taking care of the landscaping. we'll meet in the middle. all right? >> cool. >> so much stuff in there. >> right now we're going to take all these boards down, take all the insulation down, clean up

the floor, cut the floor so we can pour the primer down, and then put the top leveling down. now we're just taking all this out. looks like there's a bunch of mold on it and all that stuff so we'll get rid of it all, clear it all out. >> bringing everything back down. >> yep. >> cool. ♪ [ grunting ] >> get my workout. >> thank you, joe. my muscles. now, are we going to rip out all this brick and throw it away or refurbish it? >> we'll refurbish it.

we'll power wash it. you can't get this anymore. it's an old brick. they don't sell it anymore. we'll reuse it and set it in a different style running it out, go as far as we can with what we have in material and from there on out landscaping. >> this is dangerous. you don't have this giant pit filled with water or not filled with water in your backyard when you have kids. >> just a hazard. it's not even worth it to redo it. the kids don't have much of a play area now. if we fill this in and resod it, they'll have all this play area here. >> tooil, this garage looks great. i think it's time to get some furniture. >> absolutely. some stuff for dad, stuff for the kids' par, the play room. let's go to bobby burke homes. >> ride with me. >> sweet. lots of prepaid cards

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♪ tyler, i love shopping in new york city. they have everything you could possibly need. what are we looking for today? >> we're looking for a little bit of this and a little built of that. dad's definitely going to need some office furniture to get him up and running. and we'll need some kid-friendly furniture. >> bobby brook homes? >> i think it's going to have everything we'll need. >> thank you so much. >> no problem. >> one-stop shopping. >> that's the way i like to do it. ♪ >> our friends from kuiken brothers are here with our building materials. this is going to transform that garage into a home office and a

playro playroom. besides insulation, what other materials do we have here? >> we have here your steps, some sheeting, a couple new windows, beautiful new doors, new siding. we've got some exterior trim. >> everything one could possibly need to turn an unlivable old garage into a beautiful play room and home office. >> just about everything. >> let's do it. this is just a little simple thing that will help anybody when building. you can see where to shoot your nails. ease is si enough, but if this is hidden all of a sudden you're shooting here, you're missing the wood, here, missing the wood on the inside. line it right up in the middle, boom. now, i did not hit the nail on the line so i actually got one nail in there so i have to bang that out. >> just a line score. >> i wasn't following the line.

terrible television example of gluing, screwing, and nailing. now we're good to go. >> good to go. these are going in. next thing up is the space frames and the doors which will make everything gone. >> it's perfect because it's nice to have a lot of storage. you have kids, puzzles, book, games, all kinds of stuff. >> this way when he is writing he can throw it in quickly, make it disappear. >> out of sight, out of mind. >> exactly. >> all right. let's start this up. pull that out, joe. >> we can do that today. no problem. >> pull it out right now? >> you're going to pull your back out, you nut. get the machine and pull wit the bucket. he likes destroying things. >> you want to pull it up? >> i'm not dirtying this shirt. it was $45, man.

>> i'm getting this thing out. >> you're very determined, aren't you. >> i am. >> jump in the machine. >> all right, all right. >> it's got air conditioning. put a cd in, a little billy joel. >> while we've been hard at work in the garage and the backyard, the brashears have been hard at work themselves inside, baby number three has arrived. >> so this is diya, new addition to our family. the kids just love him. and, yeah, it's all going great. so having a newborn during the rescue has been -- it's been busy, fun, lots of activity in the house. and, you know, we stayed in the house. a little unusual for "george to

the rescue." they taped up all the windows so we're not allowed to look out or go into the yard so we've been, like, on tenterhooks so we're so excited to, like, see what's out there. but we've got no idea what they're doing out there. we sort of see the comings and goings, see a few trucks but, you know, not really allowed to see what's going on in the back. so it's been really -- >> it's been great. i mean, it's been fun to have all the traffic coming in and out. my daily routine during the year when kate's at work is -- i mean, as i said before, like the hardest part is just, like, it's very quiet and sort of isolating and all that. and so to have all this action in the house is really a lot of fun. i mean, if we were put null a hotel like i guess you normally do, i think i'd be sitting in the hotel, like, wanting to be here and just -- not -- just to, like, be a part of the action because it's fun for me.

you want me to help you? >> i got it. i'm a big boy. >> you can take the easy stuff. i like that up to take it all by yourself, kenny. you sure you're all right with that? all right. kenny, what kind of tv? >> an lcd tv. since the room is going to have a lot of light, lcd will be p perfect medium for him. it's great in all light situations. a plasma tends to get washed out in direct sunlight. so we want something he'll be able to see all the time. >> everything we're doing in there is custom including our doors. what we're doing here is i got to make sure i don't screw or drill all the way through the door. so i took my 3m duct tape and marked where it needs to stop. that way i have a fail-safe.

can always find a way to use duct tape on the job. this benjamin moore is kind of oozing. it's not running like water. that's a sign of high quality paint. you want to be able to control it. you don't want your paint controlling you. as you can see, the cabinets and the cabinet doors, a bunch of different wild colors, pretty much everything from the rainbow. the nice thing about all this is it's all benjamin moore propriety lock color technology, which means you can only get all these great colors at a benjamin moore store. you're bringing a lot of great art to this space. these were some of my favorites. where did you get them? >> small little gallery known as my house. >> you made these? >> yeah. these are the simplest diy pieces of art you can do. get the kids involved.

it's basically a box of crayons i glued onto the top of a canvas, took a blow dryer to it, let it melt, let gravity take its toll and check this out. >> this is great. under $10, right? a box of crayons, two canvases and a blow dryer and away you go. >> way under ten bucks. took no more than a half hour to create this. it's a ton of fun. >> you know what, i think we'll need more gumballs. >> stop eating them. >> guys, to think this was once a dingy, dark garage. look at all the color in here. this place is phenomenal. >> i think it looks good. i mean, to go from tyler's vision and for us to put it together, i think it came out great. >> they're going to be stoked when they see this. >> the kids, the parents alike. let's go get them, see what they think. >> absolutely. ♪

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no matter how often you wash it. color lock technology. exclusively from your benjamin moore retailer. win a design consultation with me, candice olson, at benjaminmooresweeps.com. ♪ what it looked like before was something that wasn't even usable. it was a garage that just looked like it was a storage space. it was a yard that you couldn't even use because there was a huge pond in the middle of it. i have three kids, and i know how difficult it is to get work done while the kids are around. and this -- i carved out an area he can do his own work and it has a space for the kids to play so they can kind of do it at the same time. it's going to make his life a lot easier. >> this new space hopefully will

change the brashears' life, you know, all for the better. this is going to be a place for dad to actually escape from the confines of his house and actually feel like he's going to work, he's going to his own personal office now, which i think is going to be invaluable. you know, it's leaving sort of the home situation and giving them a whole other environment of their own that they can call their own but still, you know, dad feels like he's going somewhere to actually get some work done and write that novel. and the kids are going to have their own space to really just run around and be kids. so this hopefully will be an amazing thing for them. >> all right. keep your eyes down. keep your eyes down. i can only imagine it must have been very difficult not to look, but i appreciate you guys, you know, sticking with us for the surprise, letting us tape up your windows. you guys obviously had your hands full with the little one. but the day has come to see what we've done. are you ready? >> ready.

>> three, to, one, take it all in! >> oh, my gosh. >> wow! >> look at that. >> honey! >> i don't think we even need to see the garage. >> you don't need to see it? >> no. we're done. we're done. >> let's go inside. no. just kidding. you guys want to see your new play room? all right. no longer do you have to slide up and down the banister throwing pillows at dad. we've given you your own place to play. three, two, one. >> wow. ♪

>> you guys are good. >> we try. >> you guys are good. >> unbelievable. i mean, like, beyond our wildest dreams. >> we had such a big yard before but it was just so much of it was totally unusable. and now it's like completely all totally usable. you know, when you don't have your own space it's hard to take your work seriously. when you're pulling up on the couch and, you know, kids are running around you, it's just hard to think, okay, i'm a writer. it's very hard to keep that in your head. and to have a space that's dedicated to that for me, i feel like i'm really going to be able to sort of kick it up a notch and, like, get a lot of stuff done, actually start churning some work out. i feel like this is the start of a big thing. >> pink?

i definitely think they approve.