What Happened To The Tool Time Girl From Home Improvement?

Inspired by Tim Allen's stand-up comedy act, "Home Improvement" made its TV debut on ABC in 1991. Ostensibly a family sitcom, Allen starred as Tim Taylor, a husband and father who hosted his own DIY home-improvement show, "Tool Time." Part of the action took place on the set of the show within the show, where the self-proclaimed "Tool Man" bantered with taciturn sidekick Al (played by Richard Karn) and the "Tool Time" girl. 

The first "Tool Time" girl was named Lisa, played by none other than Pamela Anderson, who went on to experience a stunning transformation over the years. Anderson appeared in most of the first season's episodes, but when the second season arrived, her presence became sporadic. There was a very good reason for that; she'd been cast in "Baywatch" and was juggling her "Home Improvement" gig with her other role as lifeguard CJ Parker. That eventually led her to leave "Home Improvement," and viewers were introduced to a second "Tool Time" girl: Heidi Keppert, played by Debbe Dunning, who remained a fixture on the show until its conclusion in 1999.

While Dunning remains best known for her six seasons on the show, her career since then has taken her in some unexpected directions. Fans of the show who wonder what the cast of "Home Improvement" looks like today can discover what's up with Dunning by reading on.

Debbe Dunning's "Home Improvement" predecessor, "Tool Time" girl Pamela Anderson, famously appeared in Playboy magazine numerous times over the years and maintained a long association with the publication. Unbeknownst to viewers, Dunning received an offer to take it all off for Hugh Hefner's racy magazine — something she didn't reveal until a 2025 interview with the New York Post.

Dunning reminisced about how her co-star, Tim Allen, and the episode director encouraged her to stay true to herself. "'You've got that natural girl next door beauty. Don't ever lose that. Don't ever get sidetracked.' And so when Playboy came to ask me if I wanted to do that ... I was like, 'I'm going to have kids someday. I don't know,'" she shared. Allen's words gave her the impetus to turn down the offer.

Looking back, Dunning does not regret passing on Playboy. As she told Fox News, she doesn't judge those who choose to bare all, but it simply wasn't something she felt comfortable doing herself. "I wasn't ready to be naked in front of my dad and his friends and the rest of the world but especially my family," she admitted. "[Maybe] it's great for some people but I don't want to be sitting in a room and see someone across from me that's seen me completely exposed. That never really sat comfortable with me, so I never did nudes," she explained.

Prior to breaking into television as an actor, Debbe Dunning got her start as a model and pageant contestant. "I did a lot of bikini contests, I did a lot of beauty pageants," she told Fox News. "It got me where I am." Additionally, before she being ultimately cast in "Home Improvement," Dunning had racked up a few screen credits, typically small guest spots on TV series such as "Who's the Boss?," "Married with Children," and "Charlie Hoover." Playing Heidi, however, proved to be her big break, opening the door to more substantial roles during her years on "Home Improvement," including on shows like "Tales From the Crypt" and "Boy Meets World," and even co-starring with Pamela Anderson in a 1995 episode of "Baywatch."

After "Home Improvement" ended its run in 1999, Dunning continued to expand her acting horizons during the early 2000s, taking guest-starring roles in various TV shows. These were few and far between, and included "The Jamie Foxx Show" in 1999, made-for-TV movie "The Spiral Staircase" in 2000, and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" in 2002. After a four-year break, Dunning returned to acting for "Wicked Wicked Games," appearing in seven episodes of the soapy telenovela-style series. 

After that, she took a break from Hollywood that ended up lasting more than a decade. "I've rode this incredible roller coaster since I was 21, and that's starting late for a lot of us, but I don't know anything else that would make me more happy," she said of her years as an actor, while appearing on "The Still Here Hollywood Podcast w/ Steve Kmetko."

In 1997, while she was still starring on "Home Improvement," Debbe Dunning married volleyball player Steve Timmons, an Olympic athlete who won a gold medal at the 1984 games in Los Angeles and another in 1988 in Seoul. During the course of their marriage, they welcomed three children — the first of whom arrived while Dunning was still playing Heidi the "Tool Time" girl. While many actresses have had to hide their pregnancy for a role, Dunning was not one of them, with the show's writers choosing to write her pregnancy into the storyline.

In real life, Dunning and Timmons welcomed daughter Spencer, who was later joined by two brothers, Stoney and Sysco. Dunning's hands were understandably full as the mother of three young children, so it makes sense that she shifted her focus from Hollywood to her family. Unfortunately, she and Timmons divorced in 2018.

"I will tell you it is hard to juggle college, high school and elementary. I think I've been very successful as a mother because I am very strict and open with my children," she told Monsters & Critics of her experience mothering three kids. "I love being a mom," she added. "When I was on 'Home Improvement' I was able to bring my daughter to work with me every day since she was two weeks old. I never missed a moment."

After several years out of the limelight, Debbe Dunning returned with a new project unlike anything she'd done before. Airing on RFD-TV, "Debbe Dunning's Dude Ranch Roundup" premiered in 2017, in which she traversed the country to showcase various dude ranches. "I would most describe the show as a travel adventure," Dunning told Monsters & Critics. "A show where I take you along with me to experience all of the amenities each dude ranch has to offer along with the incredible scenery, food, and activities." While she was often seen on horseback during the show, she insisted there was a lot more to it than that. "It's not just riding horses," she told Fox News. "It's fly fishing, it's skeet shooting, white water rafting, I mean, you name it."

While the series highlighted the more luxurious elements of the dude ranch experience, the experience did not come without at least one serious injury. "I was tossed off a horse and I unfortunately landed on a rock, and I busted my L1 and I fractured both adjacent vertebrae," she told the "Still Here Hollywood Podcast w/ Steve Kmetko." "And I was in a body brace for eight months, so I still had to film the show." Nevertheless, for Dunning, there was no discussion of delaying production while she recovered. 

At some point during the time between when she stopped acting and launching her dude ranch travelogue series, Debbe Dunning ventured far beyond the world of Hollywood sound stages and glitzy premieres. As her LinkedIn profile points out, she spent some time working as a sales and marketing specialist for J R Lennen Construction Inc., a construction firm based in Palm Desert, California. 

In her LinkedIn bio, Dunning concisely shares her career experience. "I've starred in the Television Show 'Home Improvement' playing the part of Heidi Keppert," she wrote. "I am raising 3 children & playing a lot of golf as well as working for Lennen Construction." Her profile doesn't delineate how long she worked for the company, nor during which period. Meanwhile, the company's website explains that the firm specializes in commercial construction and large building projects, including retail outlets, office buildings, restaurants, and banks.

Her role in marketing may seem unexpected to "Home Improvement" fans, but it shouldn't be all that surprising considering that Dunning got her start in TV commercials, for companies including Ford and Foot Locker. It was her series of commercials for Taco Bell as the "Run for the Border Girl" that initiated her journey to fame.

After Debbe Dunning's "Dude Ranch Roundup" ended its run in 2021, she maintained a low profile. She re-emerged in 2025, when she joined former "Home Improvement" co-stars Patricia Richardson and Richard Karn in the Season 2 premiere of Tim Allen's sitcom, "Shifting Gears," which focused on the relationship between Allen and his formerly estranged daughter (played by "2 Broke Girls" star Kat Dennings). 

As Dunning told Entertainment Weekly, she learned of the opportunity from Allen when he sent her a text asking about timing. "'Are you available? Possible 'Shifting Gears' August 13-19,' and I just said, 'I will clear my schedule. I will do anything to clear my schedule and then be back,'" Dunning declared. Asked about the possibility she'd be making a return appearance to "Shifting Gears," Dunning was uncertain, but open to it. "There's always a chance," she said. "I can tell you right now, I would be there in a heartbeat."

As Dunning explained, reuniting with her co-stars was once again an example of how "Home Improvement" altered her life for the better, and how she continues to reap the rewards. "'Home Improvement' gave me a name," she said. "I have gone to the most beautiful places in the world just because of my one part on a show that I did almost 30 years ago ... It has changed my life and enhanced my life so much."

As Debbe Dunning pointed out, the fame she achieved from all those seasons of "Home Improvement" has provided various sources of income, one of which is attending fan conventions. "Richard and I do a lot of Comic-Cons together," she told Entertainment Weekly, confirming that she and former co-star Richard Karn often appear as a duo at fan events. Since 2021, she's attended conventions throughout the U.S., in locations like Lexington, Kentucky, Providence, Rhode Island, and Puyallup, Washington. During a September 2025 appearance in Salt Lake City, she and Karn were joined by Patricia Richardson, marking the first time the three had reunited at a convention — and revealing what happened to the mom from "Home Improvement." 

What was apparent to fans who encountered Richardson and Dunning (who celebrated her 59th birthday in 2025) in Salt Lake City was that the "Home Improvement" women are aging like fine wine. In Dunning's case, her lifelong emphasis on fitness has certainly paid dividends. She maintains her impressive physique with a variety of physical activities, including hiking, strength training, and roller skating, and revealed to "The Still Here Podcast w/ Steve Kmetko" that she always carries a pair of roller skates in her car. "If I get a moment, I roller skate," she said. "It takes a lot of stamina, roller skating does, but I've built it up over years and years."

In addition to fan conventions, another place people are likely to bump into Debbe Dunning is on a golf course. In recent years, she's become a regular fixture at various celebrity golf tournaments; in 2025 alone, she competed at Murray Bros. Caddyshack Invitational, George Lopez Celebrity Golf Classic, Begin Again Foundation Golf Tournament, and Tim Tebow Foundation Celebrity Golf Classic.

Interestingly, golf is not something that Dunning took to naturally. As she recalled when appearing on "The Still Here Podcast w/ Steve Kmetko," she'd tried it a few times but performed terribly. It wasn't until "Home Improvement" co-star Richard Karn encouraged her that she began to pursue golf seriously. Meanwhile, people convinced her that celebrity golf tournaments could really use more women, so she decided to give it a shot as part of a team. "So I started feeling less pressure, and getting better and better, and then I would play more and more," she explained. 

She's even become a spokesperson for charity golf tournaments, which was the case when she appeared on HIS Radio to spread the word about the NEEDTOBREATH Classic, an annual charity golf event spearheaded by rock band NEEDTOBREATHE. The money raised has changed lives. "What it brings to these little towns in Uganda or Nicaragua is a doctor and affordable medical [care]," Dunning explained. 

When Debbe Dunning speaks about her time on "Home Improvement" — and she tends to do it a lot — it's almost always in glowing terms, recalling her closeness with co-stars and the bond they still share. In September 2025, for the first time ever, she shared a memory from the show that was not nearly so pleasant. 

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Dunning remembered being on the "Home Improvement" set and overhearing a snippet of Tim Allen's conversation, in which he was talking about recently meeting up with Pamela Anderson in Las Vegas. "And Tim was like, 'Yeah, she really misses the show,'" Dunning recalled. "And he goes, 'Well, I was telling her maybe we could sprinkle her in once in a while and you guys could both kind of share the role.'"

Dunning became so upset about the suggestion that she immediately broke out in red blotches. Producers caught wind of her apprehension and assuaged her fears, insisting that her job was safe and there were no plans for Anderson to replace her. However, that incident did inspire a storyline for the show within a show, "Tool Time," in which Anderson returned for a "Home Improvement" guest spot to reprise her role, causing Dunning's character to flip out. "Heidi quits and decides, 'I'm not doing this. I'm not sharing my role,'" Dunning told EW. "So Tim has to come and ask her to come back."

Not only is Debbe Dunning wide open for a return to Tim Allen's "Shifting Gears," but she would also jump at the opportunity to reprise Heidi in a "Home Improvement" revival. She addressed rumors of the show's potential return when she sat down for the "Still Here Hollywood Podcast with Steve Kmetko." I spoke with Tim, and I said, 'You know ... I just kind of need to know for me if I would be part of it," she shared. "And if not, then, you know, I will cry on my own." 

She may have been nervous about being excluded, but Dunning received the response from Allen that she was hoping for: If a "Home Improvement" revival ever comes to fruition, Allen assured her that Heidi would be a part of it. "He said, 'Absolutely," Dunning confirmed. "So we're just really hoping ..." 

Even though the show ran for eight successful seasons, Dunning thinks that "Home Improvement" should have continued for even longer than it did. "We ended too early," she told Fox News, recalling that working on "Home Improvement" was far from just another gig for her. "It's one of those jobs where I couldn't wait to be there, so absolutely, I'd love to do it again," she declared.