Jun
17
And the Winner Is …
I have no idea. But we did select the winner of the HGTV Green Home 2009 in a private drawing yesterday at one of the country’s leading fulfillment houses.
Boy, was it exciting. From more than 16 million entries, HGTV’s Senior Vice President of Brand Management and Scheduling, Sarah Cronan, plucked the golden egg (well, it looked more like a Ping-Pong ball with a number on it, but still). Home planner Jack Thomasson — looking exceptionally spiffy in vest and jeans — was on hand to assist Sarah with the proceedings.
What happens next? Our TV producers get to work planning out the giveaway special – and winner ambush! Who knows, you could be getting a knock on your door. If the buzzer rings, please come out on your front porch and say hi.
And now the wait and the excitement really begins.
so it looks like the winner was a mail-in entry…
someone pass me a paper bag, I’m going to hyperventilate!
How was the winner chosen? Are the mail in entries just part of the atmosphere? This is SO SO SO exciting!
Ann why did you say it was a mail-in entry? Did I miss something?
I pray the winner is my mom. Oh my, I think she would pass out!!! But I can’t help but wonder if they’re doing the same number system they have done in the past. And Kim you’re right…now the excitment really begins!!!!!!!!!!
All I can say is that I’m happy for the winner. Congratulations!!!
Have a super great day everyone!
Oh my goodness, I am so nervous. I can’t wait to see who it is!
I hope it’s me so I can finally help my sister get her first place.
But Congratulations to whoever wins!
Glad to hear we have a winner….will they be notified by mail, phone call or a surprise visit? Who ever it is…Congratulations…..:)M from R.I.
Hello! Mary again,
Gosh! 16,000…..+++++++ entries and
by mail…..auggg!
Mrs. Cronan hopefuly u pick me for the
big Gold egg dreaming and dreaming again
until the 28 enddddddddd ..
so who is the winner? ANYONE Know!!!
wow
I, hope that it is not a mail-in, because i did on-line only and that would really suck. Please be a on-line so i could have a good chance. Good luck all.
Congrats to the Winner! How exciting..What a wonderful surprise they are getting;-) and to the rest of us,,, yup, the dreaming continues!!
i am hoping and praying it will be us or someone in my family. we need this so bad!!!! even though we entered every day onkine. i only mailed in 4 entries. hopefully its one of those 4.
I’m waiting on the front porch!
Yeah , how does it work? Are there 16 million entries in that lottery barrel?
Now! nothing to say just wait, its the
Congra to the Biggest Family Winners 
begining of the best
Now! nothing to say just wait, its the
begining of the best Congra to the Biggest Family Winners
I live in Florida but would love to live in Port St Lucie. I hope the knock comes to my door. The house is just beautiful..
Mary
I can’t believe it, the time is really here. When I read the headline banner my heart actually did a flip and really got nervous. Good luck everyone and Mary thank you for letting us know.
For some reason my posts are not going through
But Congrats to the Winner!! What an exciting day it will be when you get notified if you havent been already 
Well, based on the picture, it would appear that the winning name was drawn from Bin 11 and it looks like there are envelopes (mail in entries) in that bin, so if that is the case, those of us who entered only on-line should not expect a knock at the door. Too bad because I had my 15 minutes of fame acceptance speech already planned in which I was going to ask that next year’s Green Home enclude geothermal heat and air conditioning which is VERY GREEN!
I sure hope that it was by signing in every day, cause that is what I and my husband both did. We really need a home. WISHING AND HOPING…….Cheryl Meyer
There’s nothing in Mary’s comments that said the winner was from a mail in entry. There is also nothing that says they had over 16 million – mail in entries. They did get over 16 million entries, but 90%+ of those were probably on line. The picture of the bin full of mail in entries is probably just for visual effect.
The goose has finally laid the golden egg. Lets hope it rolls this way; If not I hope it rolls in the MB or Blogs favor. Enjoy the wait all MB’rs and Bloggers and jump and get excited at every car that passes, and every phone # you don’t recognize, every invite you get, and every knock at the door. Keep it fun and laugh at yourself at every disapointment. A week before the Sonoma winner was revealed a cute Asian lady came to my door, I put on my biggest smile and most pleasant voice and said a great big hello and then she said
“would you like to buy this cleaning product”. I politely said no thank you, closed the door, and laughed at myself for a good 10 mins. This is fun not disapointing. Enjoy.
I have been entering since 2005, and I get better and better at losing every year, enjoy the ride all.
Hi everyone.
Good luck everyone. Gream big and live green.
Thank you Mary for the info. Now all we have to do is wait and smile at all of the many rushes to the phone and knocks at the door that are not from HGTV.
Maybe just maybe the suprise at door the next time is from your HGTV family. I would try not to do anything goofy like faint or loose my voice.
Cynthia Newland
Thank you Mary for the GREAT post…I guess you did the process just like for the DH2009! I tried very hard to see a reflection from Jack’s eyes revealing the winning number to no avail!! Jack, you look quite dapper in your vest! I looked very hard in the piles of envelopes to see if my two ‘green’ envelopes were anywhere to be drawn…but, then if it was already drawn, it wouldn’t be in the pile anyway….right? So the TV producers can get to work planning out the giveaway special….and winner ambush! I have my fingers, and my toes, crossed…who knows, maybe I’ll get a knock on my door. I have no buzzer, so please knock very loud, and you would actually be entering my condo from the back porch!! I will fly out to greet you faster than you can spit!! But please don’t spit ’cause I have downstair neighbors!! I’ll be watching from my deck for any unusual activity..feels oddly familiar…like when I was awaiting the news of the DH2009 giveaway!!I’m so excited…like I’m going to win….you never know!! GOOD LUCK TO ALL…let the fun begin!!
Cami I must say that I love your spirit and may GOD bless you and your family always. You’re right you know, this is fun and even more fun for the winner but we should all be happy for the winner no matter who it may be. Bless you all and good luck.
Thanks for the info Mary!
Wow, it is just a matter of days now…cancel all your appointments, answer all your calls (even those pesky “unavailable” ones we try to ignore….). And most of all, make sure you shower and look your “TV best” for the next several days!
Good luck to all!
I don’t get it, they show pictures of envelopes & then ping pong balls. So, was it a mail-in or online entry that was picked? Are onlines put on ping pong balls & mail-ins left as letters or are they also transferred to ping-pong balls & the pictures of envelopes was just for effect? I’m sooooooo confused. I never looked at all the drawing particulars before – the home pix were much more fun to look at, I just entered & greamed. Can’t we have just a little more info – mail-in or online entry & well, I guess it would be hard for them to know if it was a blogger or not, but that would be so nice to know. If it is a blogger, the winner should wear a sign during the televised special saying “I was a GH blogger!! That way the rest of the group could all celebrate that it was someone who cared enough about the home to blog. I can’t wait to see a blog post confirming that & saying the blogger’s party is at the Gream Home!!!
How exciting! I’ll be so jealous if the winner ends up being Coop instead of me, but at least I know he’d let me hang around at the Green Home for the bloggers’ party.
I hear you Kat. I’m confused too. I’ve seen it explained that they do something like flip a coin to decide if they are going to draw from the online entries or mail in entries and then they conduct the drawing.
Then I’ve heard others say that they combine all entries somehow (maybe assign every mail in and online entry a specific number) – which makes the most sense and seems the most fair.
Oh, it would be sooo nice to win such a wonderful gift!
On the ping pong ball.. I believe they assign a number to online entries, put them on a ball, put the balls in a bin and the first drawing is for a bin #; then, if I have it correct, the winning name (env. or ball) is drawn from a bin. I entered both ways, three times a day by three different zip codes (seems desperate, but it’s so much fun to dream) and once a day online.
Good luck to all! I’m sure in today’s economy almost everyone could say they could use it!
Ok… now on to the winner’s door!! WOW!! Almost 17 million entries… just under!! Now they show the ping pong balls and those numbers are to pick if the entry is online or by mail… if it is online they have the computer randomly select an entry if it is a mailed in entry they roll the ping pong balls again to select a bin and then go to the bin to draw… Last time I thought they had the computer select a number and then that number decided if it was mail in or online entry and it choose an online entry, so they computer randomly selected an online entry…and voile’ the winner was chosen.. Now, this time it looks to be a mailed in entry as the ping pong balls were used to pick a bin to pull the mailed in entry from.. and they are showing bin 11 !! Is this the one the winner is in?? Or are the tricking us… because last time they were around the computer…and they are not showing the computer!! Good luck to everyone !! Everything in life happens for a reason and it is completely luck of the draw !! Love life by living green !!
I didn’t enter by mail – not as green to print & use paper, so don’t know what my chances are now. Still hope it is a blogger.
Thought I’d share this green idea for when you do print – google ecofont & get a link to a European site offering a free font download which uses less ink but is still easy to read.
Actually when I watched the Dream Home Drawing, they had a large number of balls with numbers on them. Each ball represented a block of entries. After they selected the ball they used that number to call up the block of entries on the computer. They then randomly picked the winner as the computer was cycling through the entries. The back up ball turned out to be a mail in bin & our lovely super fan Gail picked a random number out of the bin selected for the backup winner. Don’t worry be happy for whomever wins.
Thank you Ed in Oregon for a nice summation about the randomly picked winner!! Now we all have to hang tight and hope the telephone rings, or someone knocks on our door??
Wish they could @ least tell us the region of the winner? Has that person been notified yet? the waiting is sooooo long when you are still hoping & dreaming….Best of Luck to the winner….Love life- things all do happen for a reason!
I didn’t send in any mail-in entries, but I think it would neat if it was a mail-in entry, I don’t think there have ever been a mail-in entry chosen.
I know Renee isn’t the only one in the Ft Lauderdale area so have any others been to the Florida Fruit Company in Coral Springs? Found them on localharvest.org but never heard of most of their fruits – Mamey Sapote, Red & Green Sugar Apples (sweetsop), Rollinia, Black Sapote. Any info fellow greamers??
Well, I entered every day on the computer and sent in some mail in entrys, but I do think the winner is a mail in entry. I just got laid off my job so I am ready to make the trip. I hope they can find me since the post office doesn’t deliver mail to this condo, so I included my PO Box on the second line of the entry. By-the-way, I used a recycle envelope (from junk mail). I am ready to have a bloggers party!!!!!!!
Wow, could it be any more exiting! From the kick off day to current day and to know someone out there is a winner and they do not even know it!!! Between my husband and I we had about 500 entries. Both mail in and on line. Crazy to see how it all went down and all those envelopes!!!
Ed, I figured that you would be able to give us all the details on the drawing process !!! You always give such wonderful information and we all really appreciate you doing so!! Kat, thank you again for passing along more information.. I can’t wait to here if anyone has visited Florida Fruit Company and what there report is!! I just finished a great Mango grown in Florida. Marie, I read your posting from the other blog and I just wanted to say thank you to you again as I feel that you are very kind and caring towards others even when you haven’t met them in person!! I know that you have been to me!! Love life by living green!!
Since the winner has been chosen, has anyone decided to attend the Winner’s Weekend to see our HGTV favs? What about plans for the blogger’s party? Anyone planning attend, even if the winner is not a blogger?
I would love to say the winner is me, but nothing out of the ordinary has happened around here. Guess I’ll just continue planning for Juneteenth festivities.
Have a happy day!
Hi! Does anyone happen to know how much the winner would have to pay in taxes?
Good luck to everyone, God Bless
My other comment was zapped. Maybe I’m right? Most likely I’m wrong. HGTV continues to really confuse me about these things.
If it is us, my dear hub will tell you I frequently miss the phone calls. And now….we live in a home that doesn’t allow me to peek out the windows to see if people are coming. So, HGTV if you plan on surprising me, NOW is the time.
And, should I get a little suspicious and say,”Yeaaaah, riiiiight,” PLEASE ignore the disbelief.
Who has the golden egg? Who could it be? If it’s not you, maybe it’s me.
Keep dreaming!
Ed you are the man! Thank you for summing up the whole “drawing mystery” ! Looking at these photos is kind of baffling when you stop and think ” In that very moment, someone’s life has changed…. and they don’t even know it yet! ”
I do wonder how ambushing honestly takes place….what if they don’t call… do they spy for a couple of days… or just rush in and chance it!
What fun to dream, wonder, and even more to possibly be blessed with this home!!!
Hi! everybody I wonder how Mr. Thomasson
feels to have in his hands the Lucky winner
that soon will live in the HGTV Green Home that was planned by him and plus Goshhhhhh!
What a dream! come soon true for just one
I do not have porch but, I have door, Please
TV produccers knock mine.
Living a Dreaming with the Gold egg ~.~
Good Luck to all including meeeeeeee!!!!!!!
This is so excitting! I do watch out the window every day looking for a specific unusal veicule, and I look at my caller Id, I know that this is a dream come true for many, and I wish everyone good luck. I know chances of winning are slim, and I do hope that it is not a mail in entry cause this time I only entered on line.