Exclusive: Karen Laine of ‘Good Bones’ Shares the Surprising Place Where She’s Happiest at Home

HGTV

Karen Laine rose to fame on HGTV’s “Good Bones,” where she and her daughter, Mina Starsiak Hawk, renovated homes around Indianapolis. But she’s recently stepped back from this series to work on her own personal projects, including a one-hour special premiering this week, “Good Bones: Better Yard.”

In the special, which airs on Tuesday, Laine helps a couple turn their overgrown yard into an oasis with a gorgeous kitchen and a rotating fireplace that will keep everyone cozy well into winter.

Think right now is an odd time to spruce up your outdoor space? Hardly—even as the weather cools, homeowners today are making use of their yards much more than ever before, even year-round. So if you’re eager to keep the good times rolling outdoors long after prime barbecue season is done, check out why Laine says the yard is her happy place. Bonus: She shares her top tips for building a comfortable al fresco living space where you can linger much longer than you might imagine.

What got you interested in landscaping?

I grew up in a household of gardeners. My mother made our 7 acres in Connecticut beautiful. There were flowers and shrubs. It’s beautiful, and my father was the vegetable gardener. So I was raised on gardening. I think it’s genetics and upbringing and inclination. I just feel happiest when I’m working in the yard.

HGTV

Probably one of the hardest decisions is picking what to plant in a yard. How do you help people do that?

Because I’m 62 and I’ve literally been doing this since I was 2 years old, my plant knowledge is pretty robust—and I also do a lot of research. I like to use natives when I can. What I like to do for homeowners is pick out a couple of choices, like narrow it down for them, and then say, “These three trees would do really well here. There are some different looks. Which one do you like?”

Any plants you think should not be planted at all—or removed if they’re there?

Think hard before you put English ivy or euonymus or anything like that in the ground, because it will take over. Bamboo is the same way. Even clumped bamboos, they will eventually leave their clump and spread. They have to be in a spot where they can be constrained.

Euonymus will put its roots down over a foot deep and the roots run. They will go for 40 yards if you let them, and if you don’t get out every piece of root, it’s going to grow back. Japanese knotweed is the same thing. Any of those invasive species that you have to get rid of, it is hard, really hard.

What are your best tips for creating an outdoor kitchen?

In the special, we got lucky because they already had what I call a ports de voiture, which is French so it’s fancier, but it’s just French for “carport.” It was not usable as a carport because there was a step-down. When someone came in and laid the brick patio, I don’t know why they made a step. But we had a covered area.

That’s huge for an outdoor kitchen because it takes the rain off and it keeps the leaves off and it keeps a lot of the dirt off. So having your outdoor kitchen covered is going to make it much more pleasant for you to use it.

Our outdoor kitchen was made of material that withstands the weather, which is also very important. Your ordinary big-box kitchen cabinets probably aren’t going to work outside. They’re not made to withstand the weather.

Even if the space is covered, if the wind blows, the rain is going to hit them and they’re going to degrade much faster than you want. So we use weather-appropriate materials, like aluminum because it’s not going to rust—they powder-coat it, so it’s not going to oxidize. And the countertop that we put on it is made of wood, but there are certain woods like white oak, cypress, cedar that are very oily woods. So they withstand outdoor conditions much better than others. Like if you make a little pine countertop, that’s going to fall apart real fast. So material choice for your outdoor kitchen is crucial.

What’s it like designing a front yard versus a backyard?

Landscapes tend to have three zones. The front of your house is usually your public zone and that tends to be a little bit more formal, and we want to designate “This is where you walk to get to the front door.” And then you have your backyard or your private zone, where it’s more “This is my own taste, this is how I use the space.”

And then one of the most important zones is your utility zone. It’s a place to put your trash can. If you don’t have a garage, it’s where you leave your garden tools. It’s where you put your little storage shed for your lawnmower, and that’s to be hidden so you can’t see it because nobody wants to look at that.

So if you think in those terms, that’s going to help you break this really big job down into three much smaller jobs.

You and your daughter Mina have found some famously gross stuff in ‘Good Bones’ houses. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever found in a yard?

It’s nearly impossible to gross me out. I’m not bothered by dead animals, snakes don’t bother me, mice don’t bother me. I will eat a bug if you dare me. So the grossest thing is there was a little water feature reservoir that had gotten completely buried and become very, very, very stinky. It was actually making a pretty huge portion of the yard smell bad, and I couldn’t figure out what the bad smell was. So we found the buried reservoir. I said, “Oh, well, that’s gross. Let’s get that out of there.”

In ‘Good Bones: Better Yard,’ contractor and family member Lenny returns to work on this project. What’s it like working with family?

For those other viewers who have been watching since the beginning, I think they will be very excited to see Lenny back. A lot of people were sad when he left, and that was my first request when we talked about this pilot. Can we get Lenny back, please?

And so I did a lot of schmoozing with Lenny. I’m like, “Come on. I need you, man. Come on.” Lenny is family, so he has never been gone from my life. I haven’t worked with him on a daily basis like we used to, but being able to do that again was like coming home. He’s kind of a hero. He’s just there to solve problems, make things better, lighten the mood a little, get the job done.

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