Wait, Is 'Home Town' Star Ben Napier Actually a Carpenter?

Photo credit: Gary Gershoff - Getty Images
Photo credit: Gary Gershoff - Getty Images


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Anyone who watches Home Town on HGTV knows Ben Napier has a way with wood. And he even has his own show, Ben's Workshop, which returns for a second season on December 26, which is all about DIY wood projects. So, it makes sense that many viewers assume that Ben is the head carpenter on the two shows, but he's actually not!

Ben, along with his wife and Home Town co-host, Erin, revealed in a July 2021 interview on the “Biscuits & Jam” podcast, that Ben is not a contractor. Instead, he largely spends his time honing his furniture-making skills and is considered a woodworker — which is evident in just about every episode of Home Town. A contractor and woodworker have similar jobs, but, did you know that carpenters actually require a general contractors license or a subcontractors license to work on substantial projects — such as a full-blown home or partial renovation?

In Ben's case, it’s clear that he has a mastery of woodworking (and passion for it), but he admits that it’s not the path he imagined his career would take.

“It’s something that I never in a million years would have thought like this is what I am going to end up doing,” Ben revealed on the podcast. “I think a lot of it is the way that I came to woodworking. Like most people, especially in this part of the country, South Mississippi, it’s not a big furniture world. It’s not a refined woodworking world. And so most people who get into carpentry, they start on the framing side of — they start framing houses or building decks or porches for people.”

And that’s precisely why Ben handles most of the furniture while they contract out the larger carpentry tasks.

Makes sense to us!

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