Napier Erin - Make Something Good Today: a Memoir

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Gallery Books

An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2018 by Erin Napier and Ben Napier

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition October 2018

GALLERY BOOKS and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or .

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Unless noted otherwise, photos are from the authors personal collection.

Song lyrics appearing on are from Shiftwork, by Kenny Chesney.

Jacket and interior page design by Erin Napier

Front jacket photograph by Beth Morgan

Jacket and title-page hand lettering by Novia Jonatan

Illustrations by Erin Napier

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Napier, Erin, author. | Napier, Ben, author.

Title: Make something good today / by Erin and Ben Napier.

Description: First Gallery Books hardcover edition. New York : Gallery Books, 2018.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018017981 (print) | LCCN 2018021239 (ebook) ISBN 9781501189128 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501189111 (hardback) ISBN 9781501189388 (trade paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: Napier, Erin. | Napier, Ben.

Television personalitiesUnited StatesBiography. BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.

Classification: LCC PN1992.4.N26 (ebook) | LCC PN1992.4.N26 A3 2018 (print)

DDC 791.4502/8092 [B]dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018017981

ISBN 978-1-5011-8911-1

ISBN 978-1-5011-8912-8 (ebook)

For Helen,

our best production

Erin

Its so quiet I can hear Bens Sunday watch ticking on the nightstand. I cant even remember the last time I had time to be here at home alone, piddling. The circus has dispersed, the loud whirlwind of production has vanished, and the film crew who became our patchwork family has gone home. The residue of chaos and noise remains, but the house is entirely silent.

Maybe when people think of what its like making a TV show, they imagine air-conditioned trailers, hair and makeup people, and a team of personal assistants. The reality of our show is that you bring what you need to set and if you forget something, you run home and find it. We get up before dawn, exercise so the camera doesnt make us look as though we just woke up, and walk the dogs. Then we grab Bens thermos of iced coffee and my gargantuan set bag, which Ben throws over his shoulder, and head out to whichever of three to five houses were working on that morning.

We spend our days working in a heat so consuming it is hard to breathe in some of the more dilapidated houses. Some have cracked windows with vines growing into the room, right through the crown molding. Some have the acrid smell of bat infestation. And all of them leave salty, sweaty grit on our skin: to achieve perfect sound quality during shooting, no fans are allowed on. Its very glamorous.

My makeup bag, bigger and heavier than a regular one, carries all the tricks to make me look normal in 100-degree heat. It holds a jar of crunchy peanut butter and a bag of plastic spoons, because everyone else on set likes creamy. There is a handheld fan with batteries that are dead from the fans being accidentally left on in transit. Cheap hairspray, my only hope against Mississippi humidity. Bug spray, for the early days of the renovations in soggy, rotten houses where swarms of fleas and mosquitoes search for dinner.

All that has just slipped away. Now I remember it only as an extraordinary adventure we were privileged to be part ofan exhausting and invigorating kind of grown-up summer camp.

* * *

Theres a reason we love transforming a house from an old, decrepit, sometimes crumbling mess into a warm, inviting, revitalized home. Its a moving experience getting to watch a second life start to take shape. Its a history and a future uniting in one delicious moment. And we are in a place where we belong. Where we feel safe and loved and, hopefully, inspired.

Our love of the process has nothing to do with new sofas, fresh paint, or artisan tile. Those are only the tools. The details. Its really about the moment of the reveal: the tears we feel in our throats when the new homeowners stare wide-eyed at the home they never thought was possible. The one they had imagined come to life. The whole thing is personal. And thats the point.

That sense of wonder, that ability to hope for the impossible, is inside all of us. It is how we were created to be: always changing, always evolving. These qualities are built into us. The home becomes the hopeful symbol, the arrow pointing forward. It can support a person, solidify a relationship, or bring a small town thats lost its legs back to life.

Our lives are not so different from these homes. It all starts with our foundations, the things that drive us and make our hearts beat a little faster. The things we believe in and cherishour families, our dearest friends, our faiththose are our bedrock. If they are sturdysquare and plumb, as my mama sayswe can weather any storm. They are built to last. We are built to last.

We build on a foundation, and soon it begins to look like more than just a slab; its the bones of the life we always wanted: the dream.

The houses we rehabilitate begin as victims of time and circumstance, weeds and water damage, bad renovations patched together with particleboard, true craftsmanship buried under trends and fads that have vanished into the air like the thin ideas they once were. We take down walls or rip up floors to discover the beauty buried underneath, understanding that a houses true selfits identity and its historydoesnt need to be hidden. With love and an understanding of what it needs, it can become beautiful again.