Luke Macfarlane has captivated audiences for years in his Hallmark rom-coms — but his latest project for the network, hits closer to home.
Macfarlane, who has been a carpenter since childhood, is the host of Hallmark+’s Home Is Where the Heart Is. His love of woodworking is a family trait, which he hopes to pass down to his daughter, Tess.
“I have a very vivid memory of going to the hardware store with my father, and he bought me a little red toolbox,” Macfarlane exclusively reveals in the latest issue of Us Weekly, recalling how his father got him started on the trade. “I remember coming home and he took out things and he put it in that toolbox and he said, ‘This is your toolbox.’ I still have that toolbox.”
Now that the A Magical Christmas Village actor is a father himself — he shares Tess, 22 months, with partner Hig Roberts — he is excited to teach her to work with her hands.
“She’s not quite yet 2 years old, but I can tell she already has what is at the core: a fascination with how things are made,” he gushes. “And I look forward to continuing to foster that in her.”
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Macfarlane recalls getting his start as a carpenter when he was just 10 years old.
“One of the first major project projects I remember completing and making and using was a paddle for a canoe,” he tells Us. “And I still have that paddle hanging on my wall. Could not be more Canadian.”
His passion has since grown, and Macfarlane has become a skilled professional. He even fixed up his mom’s “dream house,” which he describes as a “an old frat house” before moving on to creating unique pieces for his daughter’s room.
“I think that there was something just innately in me that loves fixing something old up,” Macfarlane explains of his house fixer upper. “I fixed up a home for myself. And now the projects that I do [are personal]. I built my daughter’s crib. I built everything in my daughter’s room from the bookshelves to the stool. I just finished building her a little chair.”
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The Brothers & Sisters alum jokes he doesn’t want to be “too precious” about his love of homemade items, but notes, “The thing that’s made by hand, where someone actually measures the distance between the back of your knees to the heel of your foot, it’s just gonna fit better.”
Macfarlane admits that while he has built kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, three chairs and two tables for his current house it’s not always glamorous.
“This sounds very boastful,” he says with a laugh, revealing, “I also need to say I lived without things for a very long time. When you make, it takes a long time.”
Despite the lengths it takes to complete a project, Macfarlane says he feels accomplished when it’s done. “I’m excited to put this tiny little chair that I made for my daughter up on my social media, but embarrassingly it’s taken me like six months and it’s one tiny little chair,” he adds. “That’s just the nature of making things by yourself.”
That attention to detail and love of woodworking is something Macfarlane brings to his new Hallmark+ show, which premiered on Thursday, March 20.
“I think so often the sort of motor for a lot of home renovation shows, I mean, the thing that kind of pushes the narrative along, is, ‘What’s the deadline? What’s the budget?’” he tells Us.
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Macfarlane explains that Home Is Where the Heart Is “kind of stayed away from those as the motor,” and instead asked, “How are we best honoring these people?”
With every episode, Macfarlane works with families that either inherited their home or it holds a special meaning to them but is in need of significant repair. Macfarlane enlists a team to “blend the past and the present” where the house keeps its “heart, love and charm” with an updated spin, according to Hallmark.
He also puts his own skills to work and does a “Luke’s Build” in each episode, where he says he “adds something personal” the homeowners will cherish for decades to come.
“This is not a show that’s just about, like, ‘We bought you a couch,’” Macfarlane continues. “It’s about [how] I am adding something that I built with my own hands to our family’s homes.”
For more details on Macfarlane’s new renovation show, pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.
Home Is Where the Heart Is airs on Hallmark+ Thursdays.
With reporting by Andrea Simpson
