Since their hit HGTV home renovation show Home Town premiered three years ago, Erin and Ben Napier have never been busier nor more thankful. They’ve just wrapped up their fourth season. They’re getting ready for their new spin-off show, “Home Town Takeover,” where they’ll lead a team of renovation pros as they make over an entire small town. And they continue developing new wares for their retail store, Laurel Mercantile Co., and their General Store, where Ben has his woodworking business, Scotsman Co. And all that while raising their toddler, Helen.
November 2018 issue of Guideposts
How do they do it? A strong faith and prayer life is key, Erin told Guideposts readers in her November 2018 cover story. She shared how she and Ben met, fell in love and had different career paths, before finding themselves renovating vintage and historic homes. In turn, they revitalized their small town of Laurel, Mississippi, and became stars on one of HGTV’s top-rated shows.
It all started when Erin left her office job at a tech company to pursue her own design work. (Her idea to screenprint save-the-date wedding announcements on lace-edged handkerchiefs attracted inquiries around the world.) But her leap of faith to become her own boss came with a lot of fear.
“I prayed. Boy, did I pray,” she told Guideposts. “I sought counsel from Ben, our friends, our family and our church. The answer came from a devotion that my best friend from high school e-mailed me: ‘Wherever God’s finger points, his hand will clear a way.’ I had to trust. Even so, on that first day of self-employment, I felt like two different people merging into one: equal parts fear and hope, small potatoes dreaming big.”
“The only remedy I could find for my fears was to erase them by keeping track of my blessings, writing them down, remembering them. I started an online journal, Make Something Good Today,” she said. “Each day, I focused on what gave me and the people around me joy. Even on the worst days, I’d search out the positive so I wouldn’t be empty-handed when it came time to write an entry. It was a way to make my faith more real than my fear.”
The popularity Erin and Ben have experienced hasn’t changed them one bit. They’re as down-to-earth as ever.
“If you never think of yourself as famous, nothing changes,” Erin told People magazine in their latest issue. “Making the show is a really fun job and we’re lucky. We’ve been amazed by all of it…But when there is no show and no one cares who we are anymore, all we have left is us as a family. So staying healthy and happy is our number one priority. Everything else has to come behind that.”
So how are Mom, Dad and daughter faring during quarantine? “We’ve been living in the backyard for forty-five days!” Erin told Guideposts.org this week. That’s where Helen plays on the swing set her dad made.” Sounds like a good way to stay at home.
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