 shows off his woodworking skills in the cozy new Hallmark Channel reality series, “Home Is Where the Heart Is.”){kind=link}
Out gay actor Luke Macfarlane (“Bros”) shows off his woodworking skills in the cozy new Hallmark Channel reality series, “Home Is Where the Heart Is.” This uplifting design and home renovation show is now streaming with new episodes dropping every Thursday through April 17.
Macfarlane and his colleague, Atlanta designer Olivia Westbrooks, enter six homes that need two or three rooms or areas (like a porch) “refreshed.” The pair work their magic with Macfarlane building a pergola or a porch swing for families, while Westbrooks finds suitable paint colors, rugs, kitchen tiles, home furnishings and more.
What makes “Home Is Where the Heart Is” comfort food for design enthusiasts is seeing how Macfarlane and Westbrooks pay homage to the past while updating spaces to make them contemporary, beautiful and more practical.
Macfarlane spoke with PGN about his new series as well as his love of wood.
This is your first reality series. What prompted you to take on and executive produce this project?
In a very real and authentic place, woodworking is definitely a passion of mine. It is something I care about and something I am interested in. I was always trying to turn it into something. As an actor, we get tired of doing the same thing. Specifically, as a queer actor, it is easy to get pigeonholed into certain types of roles. You probably would not be surprised at the types of roles I get offered to play. They usually are very narrow. [Woodworking] is a part of myself that I have been eager to show to the world and having worked with Hallmark for a very long time — when they said they were creating this non-scripted vision, I thought, “Let’s figure out how to create something around this passion of mine.”
You admit in the show that carpentry was passed down to you. How did you become “good with wood”?
It began as a kid. It was building projects with my dad. That’s how we bonded and spent time together. He was very practical that way. He was always interested in teaching — going and picking up the wood, figuring out how to fasten it, how to use a router to create a dado and rabbets. The skills I learned, I was able to turn into summer jobs. After I graduated from Juilliard and was looking for acting jobs, woodworking was a way to make ends meet — working in cabinet shops, or for carpenters, or contractors. I wanted to build my own shop and do what I love most, which is fine furniture and furniture making. It’s the exact opposite of acting. It is often solitary and slow. I want to teach people to get better at wood identification. These trees grew slowly for us, and it took a lot of time and energy. We should know their names!
You make a butcher block in episode one and a pergola in episode two. You restore a mantle in episode three and build a custom porch swing in episode six. Your work became increasingly more ambitious. Can you talk about building the projects?
I did build these things. I was surprised that there was not a team of hundreds of helpers, but that is the reality of reality TV shows. It is funny you say they got more ambitious, because I got nervous that they got less ambitious as it went along because it became very clear to me what was able to get done and not done. I think as the show moves forward, I will need a mobile workshop so I can make things easier. It was a lot of setting up and breaking down.
How long do the renovations take? Four to six weeks? Two months? A year?
You’re thinking Norm Abram’s “This Old House” level! We were 5-6 days at most. It was pretty wild. We could not have done what we did without Olivia Westbrooks, my cohost. She knew Atlanta designers who could hang wallpaper, get the rugs, and move furniture overnight.
You and Olivia debate staining wood vs. painting wood in several episodes, and you often stick to your guns about how things should be done. Can you talk about your dynamic with her? I liked that you worked in concert; it was not a competition.
Design is a conversation. I flexed and bent to Olivia as much as she flexed and bent to me. It’s a relationship. She can do things that I cannot do. And I can probably do some things she can’t do, and that’s why we need each other.
In every episode, you work very conscientiously to honor the past while also making something new and fresh. You work with reclaimed wood because it gives, as you say, “texture, character and history.” Olivia uses wall covering in one episode to do that. What tips do you have about good design?
For me, I like to begin with one object. That is how things come to me. It is finding one object and figuring out how to place it in a new kind of way. That object can be incredibly simple. We may be talking more artwork and knickknacks than total design here, but I have something on my wall from a hike I took years ago. I found the perfect pinecone, and I kept it for a very long time. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be really interesting to build something to showcase this pinecone?” When you know how to make things out of wood, you can build a beautiful deep box, put an LED strip in there, and tuck it off in the corner. It is a tchotchke, but it is a memory of this thing you did.
You talk in the show about creating a design that tells a story about the family. How does your home reflect who you are?
I bought my home, which was uninhabited for 30 years. It is an older home in Los Angeles. When I started to research the history of the house, it was built by a gentleman who was the secretary member of the board of the first sawmill or first lumber yard in Los Angeles. As a result, the walls are covered with this beautiful quarter-sawn oak paneling. And the living room has this beautiful sapwood [the center part of the wood] going all the way up to the ceiling with these six-inch moldings. So, it reflects my love of wood. After two years of renovation, I sometimes think I was seduced by wood, because everything else about the house was falling apart. I needed new electric, new plumbing, and a new roof. My home reflects me because I was drawn to it immediately because of this stunning millwork that exists in the two central rooms of the home.
