Ben & Erin Napier are famously known for their HGTV show ‘Home Town,’ where they renovate homes in Erin’s hometown of Laurel, Mississippi. The two virtually came on The Bobby Bones Show to share some pieces of advice for first time buyers and renovators alike, as well as share the story behind Chris Stapleton gifting them an airstream, and their crazy love story.
Most people assume Ben and Erin are both from Laurel, Mississippi, but as it turns out, that’s only Erin’s hometown and before their TV show, Ben was just known as Erin’s husband who came to town. The two lived in the small town for years and Ben was the cities’ mascot. Despite a massive TV show on HGTV, they are still known in their small town as the people before they were famous. The two met at Ole Miss where they both attended college. Ben confessed that 6 days after they met, he told Erin that he loved her and wanted to marry her. When sharing the story with Bobby Bones, Ben shared that his mom told him that when he met a girl he wanted to keep talking to forever, that’s when he met the one. He continued that not only did he want to keep talking to Erin after he met her, but they were connected in various ways. Erin confessed that their meeting was a lot like the movie ‘She’s All That’ because Ben was super popular when they met and she was the ‘nerdy girl’ who had a crush on him. They’ve been together 16 years now.
Their show “Home Town” has had 4 seasons so far and ever since the show’s popularity, they confessed that people do come to their town to look for them. Though they said they’re thankful that their town is good about not telling people where they live. Their show has brought them some surprising friendships like one with country star Chris Stapleton. They were at a Chris Stapleton concert 2 years ago when Stapleton’s wife’s parents spotted them in the crowd and recognized them. From there, they shared they were friends with Chris’ photographer and ended up going backstage. Ben & Erin became friends with the whole family, and recently they planned to do something with an airstream for Chris and Morgane. However, the two couldn’t decide what they wanted to do with it, so they ended up gifting the airstream to Ben and Erin. Now the airstream sits in Laurel, Mississippi with them and goes by the name of “Jolene” because their daughter’s favorite singer is Dolly Parton.
As far as advice when it comes to home ownership and home renovation, the two said their advice seems pretty boring but it’s important. They shared if someone is home renovating to make sure they don’t just blow walls out or else they could create bad structural issues. They also noted how important it is to hire professionals for the big, necessary jobs because it’s not worth cutting corners in those areas. One of the biggest things that they shared was to make sure the roof of the house is solid and/or repaired before doing new any work inside because if a storm comes a long with a bad roof, it could destroy the new work on the inside in one night.
