HGTV Erin and Ben Napier pose together.
As fans of “Home Town” are aware, Ben Napier and his wife, Erin, are famed home renovators. During a recent interview on the “Biscuits & Jam” podcast, the HGTV stars discussed where they lived as children.
Ben Napier Revealed He Apologized to His Mother While He Was a College Student
During the “Biscuits & Jam” interview, Erin noted that her “parents still live in” her childhood home, located in Laurel, Mississippi, where “Home Town” is filmed. Ben then explained that his family never stayed in one location for too long.
“Growing up, we didn’t have a house that we grew up in. My parents are both United Methodist preachers, and anybody who knows anything about the United Methodist Church is the preachers move, and so we lived in several little small towns and big houses, small houses, you know, really dumpy houses and some really great houses,” said Ben.
He then revealed he felt apologetic when he moved away from home and realized how much he and his brothers, Tom, Sam, and Jesse ate as children.
“When I was probably 22, I was at school at Ole Miss, and I was having to fend for myself and feed myself, I called [my mother] one time and I said, ‘you know, I owe you an apology. I don’t know how you and Daddy afforded to feed four of me, much less myself, because I’m going broke just trying to like eat three square meals,’” said the father-of-two.
Erin then chimed in that her mother-in-law still “cooks for an army every meal” and has difficulty not purchasing a “two pound brick of butter” when she grocery shops. Ben went on to say that his family used to “go through two gallons of milk a day” and his parents became Sam’s Club members to save some money.
“My parents started shopping at Sam’s Club before it was a thing,” said the woodworker. “You had to have a business in order to get a membership and my dad owned his truck so he was considered a small business — he was a truck driver before he was a preacher and so he started grocery shopping at Sam’s Club in bulk in the early ‘90s.”
Erin then noted that Ben’s parents still frequent Sam’s Club.
“You go to their house and they have boxes of crackers that are the size of like a refrigerator. And we’re like what are you doing with all these crackers?” said the 35-year-old with a laugh.
In 2018, Erin Napier Discussed Moving Back to Laurel
In a 2018 essay for Guideposts, Erin explained that because Ben’s “family had moved around a lot … he didn’t really have a hometown.” She noted that after they got married in 2008, he moved with her to Laurel.
“Ben and I made Laurel our home. Together, we fixed up a second-floor loft in a flatiron building in the historic district. The floorboards had nickel-size gaps, the nine-foot-tall single-pane windows were a century old and too expensive to replace, so we learned to love how the wind whispered through them in all seasons,” wrote Erin.
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