There's no place like Home

On the set of television’s most popular show, every ‘Improvement’ tells a story.

Think ’90s Norman Rockwell with a turbocharge. It’s just your average, middle-class American residence: framed photos of the kids, a complete set of the World Book Encyclopedia, functional furniture, fake-walnut cabinets…and enough space for the man of the house to blow up a dishwasher every once in a while.

Taylor-Made: The Taylor residence from a front-row perspective, “I wouldn’t exactly call it a style – more like a place to put your feet up,” says designer David Sackeroff. The set’s homeyness extends to such “ordinary” details as a wall-mounted Dustbuster, emergency numbers taped next to the phone, and a cabinet filled with mismatched sets of dishes.

Okay, so maybe it’s not exactly your average residence, but it’s the house that Tim and Jill Taylor (Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson) call Home Improvement on Disney Studios’ Stage 4 in Burbank, Calif. And with approximately 34 million Americans tuning in to their family travails each week on ABC, it’s the most visited living room in the nation.

The designer gleaned the set’s bric-a-brac from flea markets and the Disney prop house.

The set, based on executive producer Matt Williams‘ house in California, isn’t intended to evoke any particular interior-design style. “It’s not Architectural Digest,” admits designer David Sackeroff. He and his staff gleaned most of the Taylor bric-a-brac from flea markets and the Disney prop house – the look they were aiming for was tasteful, not decorated. They’ve thrown in som yin-yang touches to express Jill and Tim’s personalities – model cars, auto posters, and Detroit Lions paraphernalia go head-to-head with a Michigan Opera mug, cloth grocery bags, and fresh flowers. But, strangely, nothing in the house is from Allen’s bellowed Sears – although the Tool Time set is a whole other story.

Entertainment Weekly - Page 36 Excerpt 4 — Boy Toys: The 100-piece socket set almost covers a plaque bearing a poem by Thomas Carlyle that begins, “Man is a tool-using animal” and ends, “Without tools he is nothing, nothing at all.” Above it is a two-sided hammer a fan sent in with “Tim” and “Al” engraved on the handles. To the left of the socket set are a Navy SEAL oar and a knife collection. The only woman’s touch: a photo of a man with a fig leaf covering his power tool, which Laura Allen, Tim’s wife, contributed.

Entertainment Weekly - Page 35 Except 3 — Fire Power: The car poster above the fireplace on the shelf are of Tim and Taylor boys, Brad (Zachery Ty Bryan), Randy (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), and Mark (Taran Noah Smith). During the holidays, Gunn decorates the fireplace with greeting cards. The real Allen touch here is the specially made scale model of a red 1956 Lamborghini Ferrari. “Tim brought in a catalog with a picture of it, and we ordered it,” says Gunn of the numbered original.

Fuel Time: A perfect example of the Jill/Tim psyches at play. Hers: A show was written about Jill’s desire for a new dining-room table. Richardson and director Andy CAdiff, after looking at a slew of snapshots, picked this antique pine table – which, says set decorator Jeannie Gunn, had “more character than the old one.” His: Not far from Jill’s things are Tim’s model cars (a ’58 Chevy, a ’59 Corvette, and two ’89 Lamborginis), plus several car magazines and the baseball book “This Date in Detroit Tiger History”.

Except from the Entertainment Weekly article, showing details of the set of Home Improvement.

Author: Kate Meyers
Photos: Tom Bonner
Source: Entertainment Weekly
Date: December 9th, 1994

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There’s no place like Home

On the set of television’s most popular show, every ‘Improvement’ tells a story.

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