Yahoo Lifestyle Karen E. Laine Says 'I Can Do Anything I Want’ Since Retiring from Business with Daughter Mina Starsiak Hawk
"I’ve been doing everything I want to do," Laine reveals in a preview of the new 'Good Bones' spinoff, which finds her transforming a North Carolina beach bungalow
Karen E. Laine is enjoying the freedom of retirement.
In Good Bones’ new spinoff, the home renovation expert and former attorney buys a fixer upper in Wilmington, N.C., to transform into her dream beach house.
In an exclusive preview clip shared with PEOPLE, Laine explains what inspired the purchase while reflecting on her family life recently.
“I’m not working for a paycheck anymore,” she says. “I retired in 2019, and I can do anything I want." Laine started the Indianapolis-based business Two Chicks and a Hammer with her daughter and Good Bones costar, Mina Starsiak Hawk. in 2007. While Laine stepped back from the company five years ago, she continued to appear on Good Bones until it wrapped its initial eight-season run in October 2023.
"I’ve been doing everything I want to do," Laine continues. "I’ve been doing some landscaping projects. I’ve been doing some lawyering.”
“Taking care of grandkids, that’s fun,” Laine adds as she’s seen surrounded by the four children of her son CR Starsiak.
Laine has a large blended family. In addition to CR, she shares Mina and son William Starsiak with her first husband, Casey Starsiak. Laine and Casey divorced, and Laine then married a man named Randy Gray, with whom she shares daughter Kelsy Spaeth.
Laine and Randy eventually divorced, and she remarried two more times — first to a man named Mick, and later to her current husband, Roger. Casey remarried a woman named Cheryl, with whom he shares Thadeus "Tad" Starsiak and daughter Jessica. Cheryl died when Tad and Jessica were young, and they became close to Laine.
The clip also shows Laine reuniting with three members of her team from the original Good Bones: MJ Coyle, Cory Miller and Austin Aynes.
"I am tired of Indiana winter,” she tells the trio. “And I had this idea: Wouldn’t it be nice to retire in Wilmington?”
“I went there once and I loved it,” she continues. “So I went back in January. It was 80 degrees during the day. So I got on the interwebs and I found a house for sale and I bought it.”
However, she notes that she has her work cut out for her with the 120-year-old bungalow, which is held up by a jack on a “pile of rickety bricks.”
“This house is like one of our original Good Bones houses — just wretched,” she says.
“There’s part of this foundation that’s sitting on air,” Laine adds. “It needs a lot of love, but we can fix anything.”
The new series focuses on “new beginnings" as Laine and Mina’s lives’ “evolve past their time renovating homes in Indianapolis" and they embark on projects in separate states, according to HGTV. They appear to have filmed the show entirely separately.
Mina previously revealed on her podcast, Mina AF, that there were tensions between her and her family while the final season of the original show was airing in 2023. She said she wasn’t “in a great place” with either Laine or Tad.
In October 2023, she said of her mom, “We do not talk. We haven’t in a long time."
Related: Mina Starsiak Hawk's Family: What to Know About Her Parents and Siblings Amid Their Rift
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The show's 90-minute premiere, which aired on Aug. 14, focused on Mina renovating a lakeside retreat to enjoy with her husband, Steve Hawk, and their two children: 5-year-old Jack and 3-year-old Charlie.
“The lake house is going to feel very healing for Steve because he’s lost so much,” Mina said in the episode.
Steve’s mother died from stomach cancer in 2018, and six months later, his father died unexpectedly after falling down the stairs. In 2020, his younger sister, Stefanie, died from ethanol poisoning.
“He’s going through life the best way he can after just some really, really epic loss in a very, very short amount of time,” Mina explained. “And because his time with his family was cut short, that’s really why we wanted this lake house for Jack and Charlie — really, for the long term, for the memories, for the experiences. So that’s, I think, why it’s really important to both of us.”
The second episode of Good Bones' ninth season, “Karen's Beach Bungalow,” will air Wednesday, Aug. 21, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV.
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