HGTV's "Fixer Upper" introduced Chip and Joanna Gaines to the world, but the Waco,
Texas, power couple and founders of the Magnolia Network had already spent years together before
then off camera. So what was that like? Here's the truth about Chip and Joanna Gaines before HGTV.
It's almost impossible to imagine Joanna Gaines not being the interior designer we
all know and love today, but just like many of us, she was once a kid who didn't know what she
wanted to do with her life. In an interview with PopSugar, the mother of five revealed
her very first job was to tend the aisles at a local all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant.
She said, quote, "I still have an appreciation for buffet lines." But unfortunately,
Chip Gaines doesn't like buffets, so when she goes, she goes with her kids.
Although JoJo started out in food service, her ambitions would take her down
a different career trajectory. By the time she went off to college,
she started learning that she had a passion for a different field — but it wasn't interior design.
While studying at Baylor University, Joanna became increasingly interested in broadcast journalism.
So she moved to New York to pursue that dream. She wrote in "The Magnolia Story,"
"I loved the storytelling and the editing process, and I managed to
get two years' worth of internships under my belt at our local CBS station, KWTX."
She eventually landed an impressive internship with the newsmagazine "48
Hours." But it wasn't all she'd hoped it would be. She explained,
"As amazing as it was to live on West 57th Street and to work under a man as esteemed as Dan Rather,
I quickly fell out of love with the news business while working that job."
While still in the city, though, she'd become enamored by boutique
owners and their consumers. Joanna revealed that this helped her, quote,
"appreciate the creative process that went into each little table and window installation."
After leaving New York City and returning home to Texas, Joanna Gaines started working
at her dad's Firestone tire shop. In high school, Joanna had told her father that
she wanted to take over the store once he retired. She wrote in "The Magnolia Story,"
"I thought that was the right thing to do. I thought it would make him proud,
as if I were the son he'd never had who would step
into his shoes and carry on the successful business he'd created."
She began having second thoughts about running the tire business while she was studying journalism.
But, even after she returned from New York City, she still harbored doubts. She wrote,
"I wasn't sure I wanted to run my dad's business,
but I definitely liked the idea of owning my own business.
Whatever I chose, I wanted it to be as beautiful and welcoming as those boutiques in New York."
Still, it's a good thing Joanna did opt to
work at her dad's store for a time because that's where she met Chip.
Although Chip and JoJo Gaines met when Chip showed up at her father's shop to have his brakes fixed,
the couple had actually attended the same college. While playing baseball at a junior college,
Chip attracted the attention of a recruiter, and he ended up being offered a spot at
Baylor University. It was a match made in heaven. He wrote in "The Magnolia Story,"
"As it turned out, I loved Baylor. I loved being around all those rich kids,
even if I was nothing like them. I loved the girls. I loved the campus."
Chip continued to play baseball at the university while he also worked
toward getting a degree in business. But he wasn't exactly the best student. He revealed,
"Instead of daydreaming about the major leagues or running some Fortune 500 company, I found myself
in class looking out the window at the guys mowing grass and wishing I could trade places with them."
Political ambitions?
Although Chip Gaines' career ambitions went through a pretty flexible period
while he was studying at Baylor, as a kid, he had known exactly what he wanted to do.
He told PopSugar that he either wanted to be a baseball player or a politician.
Wait, what? The baseball player bit makes sense,
of course, but a career in politics? This is especially interesting because both Chip and
Joanna Gaines have remained tight-lipped about their political affiliations.
Both consider themselves to be devout Christians,
and given the fact that they live in Texas, a majority red state,
some believe they're Republicans. Regardless of their political leanings, though, they're
almost universally loved. Columnist Sharon Grigsby wrote in an article for Dallas News,
"I'm forever surprised to see even my most wildly liberal and conservative friends
always find one topic that they can agree on: They all love Chip and Joanna Gaines, from just
their general goofiness to their reclaiming everything large and small from the ash heap."
Chip Gaines, who once used to daydream about mowing lawns while in college,
did eventually get to do just that. But that wasn't his only entrepreneurial pursuit.
He revealed on Magnolia.com that he and his friends came up with a different business
idea while in college, charging students a flat rate for laundry by the pound.
"One of my first businesses [...] was my wash 'n fold business.
We drew out a business plan on a napkin for this laundry service geared toward college kids."
Chip and his pals would weigh,
launder, and fold the students' clothing for next-day pickup. Chip explained,
"Our location was close to Baylor's campus — it was my very first commercial building!"
Chip and his friends ran their fairly successful business
up until the time they graduated. And though the business is long gone now,
its legacy lives on: Joanna Gaines revealed that she later commissioned an artist to paint a mural
in their farmhouse laundry room to pay homage to Chip's former business, BMC Wash 'n Fold.
Though Joanna felt inspired by the designers she had seen during her time pursuing journalism
in New York City, she didn't act on that inspiration at the time. It wasn't until
Joanna met Chip that she'd gain some minor experience in the interior design field,
emphasis on the minor. She admitted she was more or less a "gofer" who helped repaint and fix up
properties alongside her then-boyfriend. Other than that, she explained that though she was
happy to just help out, she, quote, "didn't know anything about interior design or construction."
Joanna's eventual hubby also admitted that he didn't really
know anything about those things either. He wrote,
"I learned it all on the fly. I needed to put a fence in — or anything else
for that matter — I would just get my hands dirty and figure it out."
Chip and Joanna Gaines reportedly had a small, affordable wedding.
And that was partly by necessity, as they have revealed that when they got married,
they were flat broke, with nothing in the bank. Joanna revealed in an interview with People,
"I remember when we first got married the only money we had was what was in Chip's pocket.
He always had a wad of cash, but we were broke. If I needed to go
grocery shopping it's whatever was in his pocket. That's how we paid the bills."
"I married Chip Gaines. He created a monster. A nice monster, though."
"One that's sweet and smells really pretty."
Still, Chip managed to scrape together the money for a few grand gestures, including a
30th birthday bash he threw for Joanna. He managed to do it on a tight budget, spending only $695,
but he wrote in "Capital Gaines" that money was never as important to him as their love.
"It very well could have been the last of our money, and I wouldn't have cared a bit.
She was worth it. [...] Being all but broke wasn't going to
stop me from making Jo feel like the most important woman in the world that night."
With nearly $700, he somehow managed to pull off, quote, "the surprise of a lifetime."
Although Chip can now afford to throw a much more extravagant party,
it was never about spending money or throwing a big gathering.
"In those days, broke or not, we somehow always seemed to find a way to celebrate the milestones."
If you've watched "Fixer Upper," then you know Chip and Joanna Gaines can take the worst of
the worst and turn it into something absolutely beautiful. However, Joanna wasn't always confident
in her ability to do that. In an Instagram post from 2015, Joanna shared a photo of one of the
couple's first houses. She wrote that it went from one of her worst experiences to one of her best.
"I remember crying when Chip said we were moving in — it was dumpy and it smelled bad.
We fixed it up and fell in love with it. To this day, if you ask us what our favorite
house we ever lived in we both go back to this little white [800-square-foot] home."
Fixing up a house — at least to HGTV quality — doesn't come cheap,
but Chip and Jo successfully renovated their space with limited means.
Joanna wrote that home ended up being a learning lesson in creativity for her, saying,
"We were broke and were forced to be creative with
our resources and we were proud as punch about this place."
Long before Magnolia Market at the Silos would come to be,
Chip and Joanna Gaines bought their first shop. In fact, they'd been married for less
than a year when Joanna opened Magnolia Market in 2003. Joanna explained on Magnolia.com,
"In that store, I developed and sharpened my design style and skills,
grew as a business owner, and gained much needed confidence in Magnolia Market and myself."
However, in three years' time, Chip and Joanna had welcomed two children
into their lives and decided it was time to close up shop.
The couple shifted their focus to raising their kids while also growing a construction business.
Instead of selling the building, they began using it as a construction office.
Magnolia Market reopened, but in 2015 they moved it to the bigger Silos property. The original
building is still in use though: Nowadays it serves as an extension of Magnolia Market called
Little Shop on Bosque, where you can buy discounted, damaged, and last change items.
The pair's decision to place more emphasis on their construction business in 2006 turned
out to be a good one. Chip Gaines had already started flipping houses while he was in college,
so he had a decent amount of experience by then. And once they were married,
Joanna Gaines eventually developed the same passion for fixing up houses.
After spending years growing their family and buying and flipping houses together,
HGTV took an interest. Joanna told HGTV,
"One of the homes we had renovated was featured on a high-profile blog
and a production company found it. They researched our company and contacted us for a show."
But the transition wasn't easy. They told Orpah,
"It was no big deal for her, but for me to become
famous, I lost a part of myself, that was really, it was sad."
Given the fact that Chip and Joanna Gaines were noticed by HGTV without even having to reach
out to the network, you can see why they're still pretty blown away. Chip told People,
"All of this sort of fell into our laps. We were just living our life out here in little bitty
Waco. We had dreams and aspirations like most folks, but this has really been something else."
Despite their success on HGTV,
the couple made the decision to walk away from "Fixer Upper" after five seasons.
"After five years, we really realized we really wanted to take a step back and kinda
refocus on our marriage, focus on our family, and just kinda catch our breath."
But, in true Chip and Joanna fashion, the couple only came back bigger and better. In July 2021,
the couple launched their very own network with Discovery, Magnolia Network, which boasts all
the house-flipping, family-oriented projects fans could want. And to fans' delight, one
such project was the Gaines family's new "Fixer Upper" revival, "Fixer Upper: Welcome Home."
The network's shows are available on Discovery+ and the Magnolia app, but according to Deadline,
Magnolia Network will also be available as an old fashioned pay-TV network in January 2022.
With all they've accomplished already,
we can't wait to see what else the future could possibly hold for this power couple.
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