You may recognize Ben and Erin Napier as the stars of HGTV’s "Home Town,” in which the couple renovates old houses in their actual hometown of Laurel, Mississippi. The duo also recently welcomed a baby girl (who has the cutest nursery, of course!). Now, they’re embarking on a new project — a partnership with furniture company Vaughan-Bassett.
“The two lines we are creating will be called Scotsman American Heirloom (solid hardwood) and Laurel Mercantile Co. Home (veneer),” Ben Napier told TODAY Style. “The designs will be in keeping with what audiences have seen on our show. With these bedroom and dining collections, we are taking the classic furniture design of early America and British Edwardian-era country homes and modernizing it in a way that is comfortable and accessible.”
If we are going to be serious about revitalizing small town America, we have to be serious about making things in America to keep our hometowns and their work force strong.
Erin Napier
The Napier-designed pieces will be available at stores across the country, starting in January 2019. (Fingers crossed, it'll include a range of cribs, like the one Napier built for daughter Helen.)
The best part? Everything is made in America! Because rejuvenating small towns isn’t just the theme of their hit show, it’s also their mission.
“Furniture lines will be antique-inspired, designed by us, and made right here in the U.S. from Virginia hardwoods, and every time a tree is cut to build your beds or tables, another one is planted to replace it,” Erin Napier shared on Instagram.
She also revealed that an overseas furniture manufacturer reached out and offered "more money than we ever could have imagined in our lifetime.” But the pair turned it down.
“We said ‘thank you, but no thank you’ without hesitation. Because here’s the thing. If we are going to be serious about revitalizing small town America, we have to be serious about making things in America to keep our hometowns and their work force strong.”
Napier echoed his wife’s sentiments on his own Instagram account: “Teaming up with Vaughan-Bassett is something I’ve been actively working toward for two years, but it goes back to riding through Virginia in a Suburban with my family in the fall of 1999. This is the realization of a dream that was sparked at a very young age for me.”
“I’m excited to be able to design and build sustainable furniture with one of America’s last great factories,” he added in the post that includes pictures of the factory itself.
Vaughan-Bassett has a long-standing commitment to local communities in the environment that dates back to 1919. The company currently employees 700 craftsman in Galax, Virginia.