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HGTV's new show, Home Town, follows husband-and-wife team Erin and Ben Napier as they renovate old houses for people moving to Laurel, Mississippi. And though the show centers around Erin's designs and Ben's craftsmanship, it might surprise you to learn that the inspiration behind the final product has nothing to do with their personal aesthetics.
In a recent Instagram post, Erin revealed a behind-the-scenes secret: She asks every homeowner to fill out a survey and then uses the answers "to make a house feel like a home for a family."
"I never think about 'interior design,'" Erin tells CountryLiving.com. "I think about creating a home that tells that family's story, where they can be themselves and feel welcomed by the things and places and people they love."
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Here are the two questions shown in the survey Erin posted:
- Tell me about your favorite childhood memory.
- Tell us about each person who will be living in this house. What do you love to do? What are you each passionate about?
The answers the Robinsons, from last week's premiere episode, gave "explains the rolling pin wall in the kitchen, the Camp Shelby pennant, the Moonrise Kingdom inspired kids room," says Erin.
Though Erin wouldn't disclose all the questions in the survey, she did share her two personal favorites with us:
- Tell us briefly about your family history, where you came from, and what your family is like.
- Is there an object in your current home that you love that you think may be weird, ugly, or unusual? For instance, I have a porcelain Elvis bust on a bookcase in my living room!
For Ross and Laura Tew, the couple featured in the pilot episode, this "weird, ugly, or unusual" object was a deer head. "I can learn infinitely more about how to make their house feel like they've been there all along than if I just fill it with pretty things," Erin captioned the Instagram photo of two questions on the survey. "A house should not be decorated, but collected, and it should not be about my style—I only take their story and assemble it in a visual way."
This approach, Erin points out, is a lot like what she did in her former stint as a stationer, designing wedding invitations for couples.
"I try to use their personal belongings in every home," Erin tells us. "I want people to see that if they have something that's special to them, even if it's considered ugly, if it's authentic to who they are and is complemented by contrasting, beautiful things, it becomes elevated and beautiful, too. If it's beautiful to the homeowner, it's probably beautiful to someone else. Even though a lot of times the viewer won't notice or see all those objects and things that were mentioned in the survey, they're always there."
We'll be looking out for those special objects in episode two, which airs tonight at 10 p.m. EST.
