Builders Helping Heroes, the charity arm of the Rhode Island Builders Association, finished the work needed to be done on Terri Potts’ Tiverton home after her husband, Sgt. Christopher Potts, was killed in Iraq. “It’s what Chris and I wanted and they just came in and made it all happen,” Terri Potts said.

The Providence Journal Steve Szydlowski

TIVERTON — Like many young couples, Christopher and Terri Potts bought a fixer-upper house, pledging to tackle upgrades a little at a time as their toddler son, Jackson, grew up.

But the new father never got a chance to finish what he started. In the spring of 2004, less than a year after the family moved into their tiny ranch house on East Beardsworth Road, Christopher was shipped out to Iraq with his Rhode Island National Guard unit.

And there he died, that October, on his 38th birthday.

The family he left behind was broken, and so was his Tiverton home. The kitchen was a wreck, the drainage system beyond repair and some of the structure was crumbling.

Still, his wife couldn’t bear to walk away.

“All my memories are there of Chris,” Terri said. “It’s where we had our son; it’s where we raised our family, where we lived together and where we got married.”

Staying, however, was no easy feat. That is, until a year after Christopher’s death when fate intervened and a fledging charity, Builders Helping Heroes, found Terri and Jackson.

The organization, a part of the Rhode Island Builders Association, helps create better homes for wounded veterans or families of those killed in combat since Sept. 11, 2001. When its members heard about Potts’ death, in a gun battle while serving with the Guard’s Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 103rd Field Artillery Division, they knew they had their first project.

Four years after his death, Christopher Potts’ home is mended, in more ways than one.

Yesterday afternoon, Terri Potts, 39, stood in the November cold, her arms laced around her son’s 6-year-old frame, and surveyed her refurbished home.

It was like a scene out of the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, but minus the bright lights and the bus.

The house has an airy, modern kitchen, a new deck, shiny hardwood floors and coat upon coat of new paint. The entire drainage system has also been redone.

“It’s what Chris and I wanted and they just came in and made it all happen,” said Terri, fingering her husband’s wedding band that she still wears on a thin chain around her neck. “Thank you doesn’t say it all.”

Beside her, dignitaries including U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin and Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts spoke of her husband’s bravery.

“This is a particularly poignant moment because it’s Veterans Day,” Reed said. “We often recall veterans in words: recalling their deeds and thanking them. But we have to do much more, and today the Rhode Island Builders have done something more.”

Several officers of the Builders Association, including Robert Baldwin, say they got the idea for the charity while attending an industry conference back in 2005. A Florida group with a similar mission shared the work they had done for a wounded veteran, prompting the Rhode Island Builders to pledge their efforts here in the Ocean State.

The upgrades, including permits and preparation work, took almost two years and $200,000 in donations to complete. With help from almost 50 local building companies, the project was finished last summer, but all agreed that the formal dedication should wait until Veterans Day.

Christopher Potts’ mother, Elizabeth Hackett, said the ceremony brought mixed emotions. While it symbolized a bright future for her daughter-in-law and her grandson, it was also a reminder that her son wasn’t there to see it all. (Christopher also left an older son, Christopher Jr., from a previous relationship.)

But the home is a living reminder of Potts’ life, played out in photos and flags and the combat helmet he once wore. Even the yard holds his memory in a quiet reflection fountain and a rolling green lawn.

While neighbors and reporters toured the rooms inside yesterday, Jackson tossed a football out back with the neighborhood children.

What does he think of the fancy renovations?

“I think everything’s good inside my house now,” the little boy said.

He flashed a quick, polite smile and then he took off, running across the same lawn where his father once worked.

cneedham@projo.com