Chip and Joanna Gaines are terrifically talented, turning an HGTV renovation show into a mega aspirational brand.
Their family life is a huge part of their story. Faith also plays a big part in the life of Chip and Joanna Gaines. It’s why they’ve stuck with their marriage, even in downtimes.
“One thing that I would say is our superpower is that Jo and I are not quitters,” Chip Gaines recently told Access Hollywood. “Throwing in the towel is not something honestly that ever even comes to mind.”
Chip, the extroverted one in the family, told the outlet that the two established early in their marriage that “divorce or leaving one another is not really an option for us. And so somehow that little foundation has definitely served us well because things have definitely been challenging, we’re not perfect and we have issues and trials and errors just like anybody… We’re in it forever.’
Chip and Joanna Gaines are launching their Magnolia Network this week. You can watch it on Discovery + or the Magnolia app. The shows include Family Dinner, Homegrown, Restoration Road With Clint Harp, First Time Fixer, Home Work, Super Dad, Inn the Works, Van Go, The Artisan’s Kitchen, Growing Floret and Extraordinary Stories Behind Everyday Things.
The two have five children. Four of them — Drake, Ella Rose, Duke and Emmie Kay — were part of the couple’s HGTV show, Fixer Upper. Crew, who is three, was born after the show went off the air.
Chip and Joanna Gaines Found Fame with Fixer Upper
With Fixer Upper, Chip and Joanna Gaines renovated homes in the Waco, Texas area and turned farmhouse chic into a popular decorating style. Waco is the home of Baylor University and is halfway between Dallas and Austin. It wasn’t a tourist destination until the Gaines made the city trendy. The show ran from 2013 to 2018.
Joanna Gaines said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that they came up with the name of their network because of Baylor. Chip and Joanna Gaines both were students there.
Joanna said: “One of our first dates. We were driving around the Baylor campus.” Chip finished his wife’s sentence: “They’ve got this beautiful 150-year-old magnolia tree.”
Joanna then finished the story about the magnolia tree: “One that you would climb. Chip and I were driving by and it was blooming these gorgeous white fragrant blooms. Then Chip used to always tell me, because he was in the landscape business, how he could climb and scale this tree. He picked a bloom and it was like the first flower I ever got from him.
Looking back, Chip Gaines said the couple ran into tough times during an economic downturn. The housing crisis that caused the economy to tank in 2008 placed a strain on their marriage. The couple, Chip said, “had multiple opportunities to quit and throw in the towel.” But, again, he stressed that quitting wasn’t in either’s DNA.
