Joanna Gaines reveals how she and Chip have made their 20-year marriage work
Joanna and Chip Gaines continue to raise the bar when it comes to their thriving Magnolia home design empire and their relationship.
The couple announced in early March that 10 years since the start of their famed-series “Fixer Upper,” they are back with a new series “Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse.”
“When ‘Fixer Upper’ premiered 10 years ago, we couldn’t have imagined the journey we had ahead of us,” the Gaineses told Variety. “Though a lot has changed and evolved in the decade between then and now, our love for home is still at the heart of everything we do. We feel honored that we get to continue pouring into the stories of these homes across Waco, and we’re excited to share our latest project with you this summer with ‘Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse.’”
With this new series commemorating the start of their HGTV careers, the couple is surely set to show off all that they've learned over the past 10 years. Since the original show's inception, the Gaineses also started a home decor company, a lifestyle magazine and the HGTV sister-channel Magnolia Network.
After the original “Fixer Upper,” Magnolia Network launched spinoffs including “Fixer Upper: Welcome Home,” “Fixer Upper: The Castle” and “Fixer Upper: The Hotel." Joanna Gaines, 45, has also authored seven books, including cookbooks, memoirs and children’s books.
The couple, who tied the knot in 2003 and share five kids, also seem to know a thing or two about a successful marriage.
Joanna Gaines revealed some secrets behind the pair's happy union while chatting to TODAY co-host Jenna Bush Hager and her twin sister Barbara Bush during a visit to Waco, Texas, that aired on the show Nov. 7.
“Part of it is just that partnership and that understanding of, like, Chip’s strengths, what lane that he stays in, my strengths, my weaknesses, what lanes I stay in,” she said.
The couple's children range in age from 5 to 19, with oldest son Drake, away at college. The "Fixer Upper: The Hotel" stars agreed that they were lucky their children all love one another — and them. "Somehow by the grace of god we've kind of become quite a little pack," said Chip Gaines.
Despite the couple's staggering business success and TV popularity, Chip Gaines said it is his relationship with his wife that brings him the most pride. "This is not an easy way to live kind of out loud like this," he explained.
Read on to learn more about Joanna and Chip Gaines' love story.
2001: The couple meet ... but Joanna is initially interested in Chip's roommate
During the couple's appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" in February 2023, Joanna Gaines revealed that when she first met her future husband at her dad's tire shop in 2001, she was initially attracted to his roommate, a man they called "Hot John."
“I got the courage to get up out of my office. I walk towards the waiting room, and John and I make eye contact. But I’m not really gifted at making conversation,” she recalled. “So I looked at him and I’m like, ‘Now what?’ And so instead of going to the waiting room, I walk straight outside, like I was going to take a smoke break or something.”
“As I’m walking outside, Chip is coming in to get Hot John,” she continued. “And he intersects.”
Chip Gaines remembered that he instantly chatted up his future wife.
“I always have a one-liner planned for any occasion where you might meet one of the most beautiful women on the planet,” he said. “You must have that back-pocket line ready to rock. So she walked right past Hot John, thankfully, right into (my) loving arms.”
Chip Gaines described Hot John as “tall, dark and handsome,” and then himself as “sort of shorter, redder and frumpier.”
“That’s my type," his wife sweetly interjected.
2001: Their first date is a mixed bag, for Joanna at least
The future HGTV stars went on their first date soon after meeting, but Joanna Gaines wasn't so sure about "chatty" Chip Gaines, she revealed in the summer 2020 issue of the couple’s Magnolia Journal.
“It wasn’t love at first sight for Chip and me,” she wrote. “For one thing, I was typically attracted to guys who were more on the quiet side. Based on our first date, it was clear that Chip was anything but quiet. He was all over the place, talking about the businesses he’d started, and these ideas he had, and how he was buying up little houses and flipping them, and I was wondering if he was just a bit crazy."
However, something about Chip Gaines' dreaming of a bigger life appealed to her, as did the notion that two such opposite people could benefit one another.
“When Chip did eventually stop talking, if only to take a breath, I found myself wanting to fill the silence with plans and dreams of my own," she wrote.
“Ideas that I kept close and half-baked for fear that I didn’t have what it would take to turn them into realities," she explained. Dreams that I knew required the heart of a risk taker, a quality I’d long considered to be one I simply didn’t possess.”
May 31, 2003: The couple get married
Despite Joanna Gaines' early reservations, she said yes to a second date with Chip Gaines and the rest is history.
The couple tied the knot on May 31, 2003, in Waco, Texas.
Oct. 16, 2003: They open Magnolia Market
Months after saying "I do," the young dreamers opened their first store, Magnolia Market, in Waco.
Joanna Gaines honored the milestone in 2015 when she shared a throwback pic of the couple at the store on Instagram.
"A flashback to October 16, 2003 when we first opened Magnolia Market. I never wore red lipstick but I was feeling bold that day and tried it. I was extremely grateful for the forty customers that came in that day to support us," she wrote. "Now 12 years later I’m completely blown away. THANK YOU for all the support, we feel it and are so humbled and grateful!"
2005 through 2010: The couple welcome their first 4 children
Joanna and Chip Gaines welcomed their first child, son Drake, in 2005. Daughter Ella arrived the following year. Son Duke was born in 2008 and daughter Emmie-Kay in 2010.
The Gaineses have often shared the spotlight with their kids, who have appeared on their parents' TV programs and on their social media pages.
Joanna Gaines told TODAY.com in November 2022 that she always tries to help her kids enjoy their "youth and innocence."
“As their mother, I think my biggest job is how do I keep them where youth and innocence is something that they relish in, that they love it,” she explained.
“Life is coming and it is what it is,” she continued. “But right now, these moments are the best moments of your life. And remember these moments — they will one day be healing for you when you’re older.”
May 2013: The couple make their 'Fixer Upper' debut
Chip and Joanna Gaines debuted their first house-flipping reality show "Fixer Upper" in a pilot episode on HGTV. The show, which aired its first full season the following year, made TV stars of the couple while serving to help grow the Magnolia brand.
The show aired for five seasons and inspired several spinoffs, including "Fixer Upper: Welcome Home," "Fixer Upper: The Castle" and "Fixer Upper: The Hotel."
2015 to present: The couple expands the Magnolia empire
Following their "Fixer Upper" success, the Gaineses continued building their Magnolia empire, opening a bigger Magnolia Market in downtown Waco in 2015, launching the Magnolia Journal in 2016, and in 2022 unveiling the Magnolia Network on cable.
They also opened a bed and breakfast and created several successful home decor lines, among countless other business ventures.
June 2018: The couple welcomes 5th child, Crew
Joanna and Chip Gaines became parents for the fifth time when son Crew arrived in June 2018.
"And then there were 5. The Gaines crew is now 1 stronger! 10 beautiful toes and 10 beautiful fingers all accounted for, and big momma is doing great! #blessedBeyondBelief," Chip Gaines announced on Twitter at the time.
March 2023: The couple talk about the 'challenges' they faced early on
In a story published in People in March 2023, the couple opened up about the "challenges" they faced in the early days of their marriage.
“In the first months of our marriage, we were always flipping a house,” Chip Gaines told the publication. “We were working on this little shop. We had babies early in the process. We pretty quickly had to say, ‘We’re either going to go at each other and blow this thing up, you and I trying to fight each other about every nook and cranny, or we can figure out how to come together as a team.’
“We’ve had our challenges. I don’t want to belittle that piece of the equation,” he added. “But Jo and I — I don’t know if it’s our hearts — we’re aligned in this sweet way to where we’ve just always been there for each other.”
April 26, 2023: They attend a White House dinner
The couple arrived as guests of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden to a White House State Dinner in honor of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and First Lady Kim Keon Hee on April 26.
May 2023: Chip honors Joanna on their 20th anniversary
Chip Gaines paid tribute to his wife on the couple's 20th wedding anniversary in May.
“20 years with the most incredible, most powerful, most beautiful woman I’ve ever known,” Chip Gaines, 48, wrote May 31 on Instagram.
“You’ve given me the most beautiful life and I’m so grateful to God for you @joannagaines. 20 years ago today, you made me the happiest man on earth. Thank you for everything Jo,” he added.
March 2024: A new 'Fixer Upper'
In early March, the couple revealed that they would be celebrating the 10-year anniversary of "Fixer Upper" with a new season, “Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse.” The show will premiere on June 2 on Magnolia Network.
According to Variety, the couple will "take on a unique mid-century modern lakehouse flip near Lake Waco, a new neighborhood for the home renovation duo based in Waco, Texas. From demo to design, viewers will follow the full transformation of the property throughout the season as Chip and Joanna go above and beyond."
This article was originally published on TODAY.com