The beloved mother-daughter duo Karen Laine and Mina Starsiak Hawk have been making a name for themselves and inspiring plenty of home renovations thanks to their popular HGTV series Good Bones. Premiering on the network back in March of 2016, the series not only also delves into their incredible renovations of homes but also their personal lives. But while Laine and Starsiak-Hawk may be the two stars of the show, Laine’s youngest child, Kelsy Gray, is making her own mark on the family business.
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With Laine having announced her retirement from Two Chicks & a Hammer, the company she and her eldest daughter started in 2014, Gray has stepped into a more prominent role as she helps her sister run the business. Just like her sister, Gray’s personal life has also been the cause of interest for fans. Just this past weekend, she tied the knot to her longtime boyfriend, with Starsiak Hawk documenting the evening on social media.
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Good Bones airs on HGTV, with the fan-favorite series already renewed for a sixth season, set to debut sometime in 2021. Scroll down to see everything that you should know about Gray.
What does she do for a living?
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Throughout the last several years, Gray has held a number of different jobs. Graduating from Indiana University Bloomington in 2015 with a degree in psychology and French, she landed the job of sales associate at Pepsi Co, a position she held from July 2015 until September of 2016, after which she became District Sales Leader, according to her LinkedIn profile. She worked in that role until December of 2017 and now has the title of Chief Business Officer for Two Chicks and a Hammer, the family company.
“[Kelsy] is our chief business officer and she needs to get a world of credit for how long and hard she’s worked because although Mina is the boss, Kelsy’s the one who makes the things happen,” Gray’s mother told PopCulture.com. “Working with Kelsy is a delight. She has all the human relationship skills in the world, and she and I are really good at, ‘This is business’ [versus] ‘This is personal.’”
Two Chicks and a Hammer
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Founded in 2014, Two Chicks and a Hammer is the mother-daughter duo, Mina Starsiak-Hawk and Karen Laine’s brand of housing rehab projects in and around the southeast downtown Indianapolis region. They have the mission statement, to “Revitalize Indianapolis One Property at a Time.” It has since given way to Two Chicks District Co., with Two Chicks Homes and Two Chicks Give Back coming sometime soon. Speaking the PopCulture ahead of Two Chicks District Co.’s opening, Gray opened up about the new endeavor.
“One of the most common questions we get from our fans is where did you get [this]? So, it just made sense that we create a space where fans, guests and neighbors could come and shop the items that they [and we] love,” she said. “We would have opened a lot sooner, but you know… life. We had to find the funding and time because the core business Two Chicks and a Hammer keeps us all pretty busy.”
Two Chicks District Co. is located at 1531 S East St. in Indianapolis, Indiana, and opened June 20. Their regular store hours are noted on their official website.
She made her ‘Good Bones’ debut in 2018
While Gray’s mother and sister shot to stardom thanks in part to their HGTV series Good Bones, Gray did not make her debut on the series until May of 2018, when she and her now-husband Neil began searching for a bigger house. In the seventh episode of the third season, the couple, deciding that Gray’s 950-square foot home was no longer large enough with Neil and his dog moving in, ended up purchasing a home that Laine and Starsiak Hawke built on an empty lot. The couple shelled out $376,000 for the home, which cost $265,000 to build and could have sold for over $400,000.
Gray and Neil
According to the couple’s story on The Knot, Gray and Neil met several years ago after being set up on a blind date via their mutual friend, Alexa. Although Neil, who “had almost given up hope of finding a person that he would be able to connect with,” had been hesitant to agree to the date, he finally agreed after Gray sent him a notification on Facebook asking if he wanted to take part in trivia night at The Elbow Room. When Neil showed up at the local watering hole, he laid eyes on “one of the most beautiful and organic individuals” he had ever seen. According to the post, “the two liked each other instantly, and it seemed as if they had both finally found ‘their person.’”
Their engagement
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After moving in together two years after meeting and became engaged not long after, thanks to a little help from Alexa, who sent Gray “super cheap Paris tickets.” The couple spent New Year’s Eve in the City of Love, with Gray admitting that “she was sure that IF it was going to happen it would be” at the restaurant Neil had made dinner reservations for. To her surprise, however, Neil popped the question during a walking tour through Montemarte, during which Neil kept checking his phone “and offering different routes they should take on the tour.”
“Finally, Kelsy was fed up and said you lead the way. We can go wherever you want, and that’s when she heard a ring box clasp shut. Is this really happening?!? Neil asked her to marry him outside a little vineyard and La Maison Rose,” the couple wrote of their engagement. “He also had organized to have his long time family friend Tara there to take photos, which is why Neil kept checking his phone to make sure it was timed just right. Those photos are Kelsy’s favorite photos in the whole wide world. The next 14 days were the best they ever had.”
They recently married
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Flash-forward to Saturday, Nov. 7, Gray and Neil’s love story cultivated in them saying “I do” surrounded by family and friends in Indianapolis, Indiana. Their wedding, however, didn’t go entirely as planned, as the original band they had booked, Huckleberry Funk, backed out due to a double booking. Thankfully, the local band The Indigos stepped in to save the day.