Iris Garcia hugs Gilbert Sanchez as they and their nine children move into their new home renovated by Habitat for Humanity.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

The duplex in the Armory District of Providence was boarded up. It had been foreclosed on. It was just what Herman deKoe was looking for.

“I was looking for a foreclosed duplex with this idea in mind,” said deKoe, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Rhode Island-Greater Providence.

The idea was to create a first for his organization. Usually, Habitat builds four-bedroom houses, with the families who will live in them providing hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” in the process.

But when Iris Garcia and Gilbert Sanchez applied for a Habitat home six months ago, they provided a challenge. The old model would not work.

“This is a unique situation,” said deKoe as he stood on the second floor of the house Wednesday morning. “And this is, I think, quite creative.”

Unique and creative for sure. The duplex is a duplex no more. The dividing wall was knocked down. It is now a house with seven bedrooms. It is home to Garcia and Sanchez and their nine children.

DeKoe said he never promises families a specific date for moving in, but this time he did. This time, he promised that the 11 members of the family would move in by Thanksgiving.

On the day before Thanksgiving, furniture was still being carried in. There were boxes to unpack. And in the midst of it all, there was that first Thanksgiving dinner in the new house to prepare for. With a grandmother and a bunch of other relatives due to show up, Garcia was pretty sure she’d be serving dozens.

The family had been living in two units in the Hartford projects. The move means a release from old restrictions. Garcia, who is disabled, is already thinking about the pool she will put in the backyard for the children.

The youngest child is 2. The oldest, Carlos Lugo, is 17 and a junior at Central High School. A lot of the sweat equity that went into the house came from him. Among other jobs, he had to tear out a kitchen that had been on one side of the duplex.

“I love doing this kind of stuff — breaking down and building up,” said Lugo, who had volunteered with Habitat before working on his family’s new home.

He wants to be a welder. He likes building. DeKoe said that Lugo and Sanchez are the best team he has seen in terms of providing sweat equity on a project. They provided hundreds more hours than required.

Sanchez stood in the kitchen, surrounded by boxes, on Wednesday morning.

“I’m just happy for my kids,” he said.

In the living room, there was a citizen citation from Mayor David N. Cicilline on a table. It was part of the newness. There are possibilities here. That is what is always so striking when a family moves into a Habitat house. They can move into their own place. They can put a pool in the backyard. They can claim some privacy.

“It means a lot,” said Lugo. “Seventeen years we were living in the same area, the same house. We never moved.”

Now, they have a 7-bedroom house for which they will pay $150,000. It is the kind of ridiculously low price Habitat makes possible with its volunteers and all that sweat equity.

The duplex is only five years old, so there was very little structural work to do beyond taking out the dividing wall. There were some doors to replace, a lot of painting and cleaning.

Habitat for Humanity has always been better at building new than rehabbing an existing house, deKoe said. But the duplex just worked out. It was the best way to fill the kind of need never filled before.

A family of 11 now has a house that is theirs in a way most homeowners will never know.

bkerr@projo.com