Bernard McFarland has lived with leaky pipes, bad wiring and crumbling drywall. His three teenage sons share a bedroom.

Within a week, it will all be gone — demolished and replaced by a bigger, brand-new house, courtesy of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

Producers of the hit reality show surprised the McFarlands early Saturday, transforming the 2300 block of North Oxford Street as crews set up and the show’s hosts began interviewing neighbors. In announcing McFarland’s selection, ABC Entertainment stressed his active role in the neighborhood where he grew up and returned to raise his family.

That’s what McFarland was thinking about after he found out his home had been chosen for a makeover.

“Hopefully, all of this will instill a renewed sense of hope in this community,” he said. “I got out of the military and felt like God called me back here.”

A single father of three, McFarland works as a computer specialist at Marshall High School.

He moved into his 1,500-square-foot, 1 1/2-story brick home about eight years ago. The house, which was built in 1920, has seen better days — and so has the neighborhood around it.

About the time he moved back to Martindale-Brightwood, McFarland produced a documentary celebrating the neighborhood’s history. He works as a mentor for children in the community.

“Bernard deserves this,” neighbor Eugene Akers said. “He is a great kid who does a lot of work with the kids.”

The makeover will extend beyond McFarland’s house.

“It will be a shot in the arm that this neighborhood needs,” said Akers, who is the Center Township assessor, and at 63, a lifelong resident of Martindale-Brightwood.

“It used to be very lively around here, but it has really gone downhill.”

McFarland said he realizes the “sudden-wealth” pitfalls that leave some families unprepared to handle the kind of good fortune that came to his door Saturday.

“I definitely need to sit down and go through some financial planning,” he said. “I know it is going to take a lot of work to manage this financial windfall.”

A limousine soon whisked the McFarlands away to Chicago, where they will depart for an all-expenses-paid weeklong vacation in Paris.

Demolition starts this morning, and Carmel-based Estridge, the show’s “local building partner,” and about 4,000 volunteers will descend on the neighborhood near 25th Street and Keystone Avenue.

Company President Paul Estridge said neighbors will get to share in the makeover. Volunteers will tear down fences, plant trees and clean streets around the neighborhood’s 450 other homes.

City inspectors will monitor the building process day and night to ensure the structure is safe, said John Bartholomew, spokesman for the Department of Metropolitan Development. Police will help block off streets.

The builder, meanwhile, wants to make sure neighbors are not left behind in the shadow of a new mansion. Estridge said his company is planning something more moderate than the “way over the top” dwellings on past episodes.

The McFarlands will return to see it Saturday, and their home will be the show’s season finale, set to air May 17.

Call Star reporter Josh Duke at (317) 444-2810.