‘Good Bones’ Star Karen E. Laine Announces Major Career Shift

After nearly a decade of renovating homes on HGTV, former “Good Bones” star Karen E. Laine has shifted her focus and returned to her work as a lawyer. In an Instagram post on May 28, 2025, Laine announced that she has joined the Indianapolis law firm of criminal defense attorney Josiah Swinney.

“I have been a lawyer for over 30 years, and was on HGTV’s ‘Good Bones’ for 9 seasons,” Laine wrote, captioning a post that featured photos of her and Swinney. “Followers are used to seeing my crafting and home improvement content, which I will continue to post, but there will be some changes because I am excited to be joining Josiah Swinney to restart my criminal defense practice.”

The career shift is the latest personal change for Laine, 62, whose hit show ended in late 2023 after a fallout with her daughter, “Good Bones” co-star Mina Starsiak Hawk. Laine has since split from her fourth husband and sold the North Carolina property where she had planned to retire after restoring it for a 2024 “Good Bones” spinoff.

Karen E. Laine Describes Similarities Between ‘Good Bones’ & Her Work as a Lawyer

Laine earned a Juris Doctor degree from Indiana University’s McKinney School of Law in 1992 and worked for years as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney before turning full-time to her other passion of home restoration.

She and Starsiak Hawk built a mother-daughter home renovation business in Indianapolis called Two Chicks and a Hammer after renovating their first home together in 2007. HGTV came calling in 2014, and the first episodes of “Good Bones” premiered in 2016. Laine decided to retire in 2019 and sold her half of the business to Starsiak Hawk, but continued to appear on the show.

“When asked if it was hard to transition from law to home renovation,” Laine wrote in her May 28 Instagram post, “I explain the similarities: I meet people charged with a crime or a run down house on their worst day. It is my job to understand what went wrong, and then use my skills to turn the story in a new direction.” 

“As an attorney,” she continued, “I am committed to protecting the constitutional rights of people charged with crimes. Justice requires vigorous representation and finding that in the 21st century means websites and search engines. Help people who have been charged with a crime find me by leaving a five-star review at defenselawindiana.com”

Karen E. Laine is Back to Living Full-Time in Indiana

After “Good Bones” ended, Laine planned to retire in Wilmington, North Carolina — a spot she’d visited and fallen in love with years before. Following her split from husband Roger Rominger, whom she was with for eight years, Laine transformed a dilapidated Wilmington home into a unique personal oasis on “Good Bones: New Beginnings,” a spinoff that aired on HGTV in August 2024.

That November, Laine had a change of heart and listed the home for $500,000. She revealed on Instagram in January that she’d purchased a new fixer-upper in Greenfield, Indiana — located about 25 miles east of Indianapolis.

When a fan asked why she had returned to the area, Laine wrote, “five grandkids in Indy that weren’t there when I bought the Wilmington house tipped the scales a different direction. The Wilmington house is for sale and until it sells, I visit there regularly”

At the time of publication, the Wilmington home still hadn’t sold. After a $51,000 price reduction in March, the property was taken off the market in May.

In a May 15 update on the renovations to her Indiana home, she told a fan of her move, “I also miss Wilmington and still hope to live their full time some day, but family priorities required that”