Erin and Ben Napier Give Us a Peek Behind the Scenes of HGTV’s Home Town Season 4 – Parade

Erin and Ben Napier, known to millions as the stars of the HGTV hit series Home Town, still cant believe that renovating houses in tiny Laurel, Mississippi, has made them famous. We do such a mundane thing, says Erin, 34, sitting in the office of their production company before heading to the afternoons makeover house. We work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., says Ben, 36. Yeah, we have a cameraman and a director, but its like were going to work in an office with our construction team or on a job site.

The show, entering its fourth season, follows Erin and Ben as they turn dilapidated old houses into dream digs. Its also bringing new energy to Laurel, an old timber town of almost 19,000 that waned in the mid20th century once the areas loblolly pine forests were logged. Laurel has seen some hard times, said Ben in the shows season-one opening. Were committed to changing that one house at a time.In the season premiere, Jan. 20 at 9 p.m. ET, the Napiers share their experience regarding the tornado that touched down in Laurel and the surrounding area in December. (Watch a sneak peek from the premiere below!)

The series has turned Erin and Ben into Americas newest home renovation sweethearts and made Laurel a tourist destination for fans of the show. Home Town drew 12.2 million viewers during its third season. Laurel is attracting visitors from across the country who drive through the historic district looking for some of the 30-plus houses renovated on the showas well as for the Napiers 1925 Craftsman. They shop at businesses the Napiers are partners in, such as Laurel Mercantile Co., a housewares boutique the couple opened with a group of their entrepreneurial friends in the towns old dry goods store and stocked with American-made merchandise including jadeite dishes, heirloom tools and paintings by local artists. Nearby is Scotsman General Store, which sells boots, flannel shirts, craft soda and the Napiers own brand of coffee, Big Bens Blend. Bens woodshop is housed there too. It features an exhibition window, so visitors can watch him make furniture for the show. And they have a furniture line thats made in two small towns in North Carolina and Virginia, because the couple is committed to making small towns better.

In fact, the Napiers are so serious about making little towns better that theyre hitting the road this year to revitalize another small town for a new, six-episode spinoff series for HGTV,Home Town Rescue. The couple will help members of a yet-to-be-named community renovate homes in the area and upgrade public spaces. The new show is set for a 2021 premiere. Dont worry, Laurel, theyre not leaving permanently. The original show will go on. We never want to live anywhere else, Erin says. We love it here.

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Erin was born to create. She grew up in Laurel wanting to be a book designer, inspired by her real estate agent mothers painting and writing and an aunt who was into scrapbooking. Her aunt gave her a big, huge photo album with staticky sheets, and little Erin filled it with leaves she found, newspaper clippings about dinosaur bone discoveries and her own writing. In seventh grade, she discovered typography. As soon as we got a computer, thats when graphic design began for me, Erin says. I would make these fake ads for things, fake logos. I had fun with type.

She met Ben when they were both students at a junior college in nearby Ellisville, Mississippi. He was a 20-year-old history major, the son of a Methodist minister who had grown up in little towns all over the South. She was an 18-year-old graphic design major, the daughter of a doctor whose family had lived in Laurel for generations. He was outgoing and funny. She was quiet and artistic. They met when she took his photo for a yearbook feature. Six days later, we decided we would get marriedwhen we got out of school, Erin says. Weve been inseparable ever since.

They transferred to Ole Miss, and thats when Ben picked up woodworking. After his classes ended, he would hang out with Erin in her art classes. When she needed to frame pieces for a student exhibition, Ben made the frames. Hed done rough carpentry, but fine woodworking was new. Some of the graduate assistants showed me how to use the tools, Ben says. It became an obsession. Yep, he became a woodworker for the woman he loved.

Erin inspired his first foray into furniture making too. I wanted a $3,000 armoire I saw in an antiques mall, and we couldnt afford it, she says. So Ben built one just like it for her. He discovered that making furniture made him happy and that there was no place he would rather be than in a woodshop. My real passion is furniture design, Ben says. You can get lost in it.

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After they graduated college, the couple moved back to Laurel, against the advice of some who wondered what Erin was going to do with an art degree in a dying lumber town. My parents said, Youre very talented, but you live inMississippi, baby. Its just going to be hard to be a professional artist, Erin says. And I was like, No its not. Just watch. Just watch, and Ill show you. I think it was a little bit of a rebellion for me to come back here.

She worked as a graphic designer for a financial marketing company, then started her own business designing letterpress wedding invitations and selling them online. Ben was a woodworker, Methodist student ministry director and Mr. Loblolly, the official lumberjack mascot of town events. They bought the gorgeous old house Erin had wanted to live in since she was a little girl, began renovating it and they got two fuzzy dogs.

Their big break came when a former HGTV executive started following Erins Instagram account and saw the makings of a TV show about an adorable couples life in a small town in the Deep South. The executive, Lindsey Weidhorn, who now runs her own production company, asked the Napiers if they were game. Erin and Ben said yes, because they wanted to draw positive attention to Laurel. Home Town premiered in March 2017 and was an instant hit. The show is a paean to small-town life, where neighbors are friendly, church bells ring on the hour and mortgage payments are small. Its a binge-watchers dream. You can tune out current events for hours watching Ben and Erin rescue wood floors from shag carpet, eradicate 1980s kitchens, put up luscious crown molding and get it all together in time for the big reveal. Just try to watch it without googling Laurel real estate and wondering briefly if your boss would let you telecommute.

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Erin and Ben dont do the construction on their makeovers, but the vision for how a property should look is theirs. On each episode, a homeowner chooses one of two homes selected by the Napiers, buys the place and hands the keys over to Erin and Ben for the remodel. The couple works with contractors, artisans and designers to direct the renovation. Ben makes a few pieces of custom furniture and features for the house, like a banquette made of wood repurposed from the local high school gym or a kitchen table with perfectly turned legs. Erin decides what walls to knock down to open up that dated floor plan and oversees the design, adding artisan touches like custom stained-glass windows or wall art made from the innards of an old piano.

They give homeowners the digs of their dreams for less than $200,000, on average, including the house sale price and the renovation. Thats the beauty of living in a state where the cost of livings low. I mean, if you make $100,000 a year in Mississippi, you are living large, Erin says. We give people the very best historic restoration and preservation we can with the budget that they have. Scrappy, not crappy is the motto around here.

The Napiers work on small budgets with a fast turnaround, because its TV, not reality. If the custom tile they ordered for the makeover house arrives broken, Ben and Erin dont have time to order more. They have a production schedule to keep, so they have to improvise. We go that day to City Home Center [a locally owned home improvement store in Laurel] and get something else. You have to be flexible, Erin says. We do a lot of problem-solving, Ben says. Thats where we shine.

Erin and Ben arent impressed with their own celebrity. Theyre quick to give credit to the crew that helps them on the house makeovers for the success of the renovations, and their business partners and fellow Laurel residents for the towns revival.

They are authentically adorable together. Ben is a 6-foot-6 bear of man who towers over pixieish 5-foot-5 Erin. They finish each others sentences. She calls him Big and gazes at him lovingly while he speaks. He hugs her a lot. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Helen, whos the center of their world. They plan their daily schedules around her naps, meals and bedtime, and they wont go out of town for more than two nights unless Helen can go along with them. Helens number one, and everything else has to fall in line behind her, Erin says.

Theyre really into vintage. Ben drives a 1962 Chevy pickup. Erin drives a 1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. They live in a 95-year-old house and work on old houses all day long. Older things are the closest things we have to time machines, Erin says. When you live in an old house or drive an old car, you always feel like youre living in a time when design mattered more. Now its all about expediency. How fast can we build, how quick, how cheap. And I dont care about fast or cheap. Everything should be savored and enjoyed, and I think thats what old housesand lifeis about.

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Wherever Erin and [our daughter] Helen are. Ben

The place Id rather be when Im on a plane. Erin

Best reno idea

Ben: Customize prefab. We bought a door off the shelf for our house but pulled off the factory trim and custom-made trim to match the house.

Erin: Spend money on bigger baseboards. You need bigger baseboards than you think you do. Big baseboards are sexy.

What they geek-out about

Ben: Wood grain, like in the crib he made for Helen.

Erin: Typography can be art.

What every home must have

Ben: Big windows open up any space.

Erin: Books personalize a room.

Their plan for life after TV stardom

Erin: When the show is over, Im going to design books.

Ben: Im going to work in my woodshop.

Their home renovation heroes

Ben: The guys on This Old House. I love watching their show, because theyre a bunch of awkward old men who are just like the guys in our crew. Theyre just good at what they do.

Erin: Gil Schafer is my absolute favorite. Hes an architect who works a lot with Rita Konig, whos an interior designer.

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Erin and Ben Napier Give Us a Peek Behind the Scenes of HGTV's Home Town Season 4 - Parade