There are a number of what we could rightfully call “golden couples” when it comes to HGTV. People who partner in love and home renovation are all over the network, but one of the earliest success stories definitely belongs to Chip and Joanna Gaines of Fixer Upper fame. While the original series only ran from 2014 to 2018, and the couple has since moved on to other ventures, fans still have very fond memories of the show. Now, the Gaineses talk about making it out alive” at the end of their renovation series and some of their weird finds.
What Did Chip And Joanna Gaines Say About Making It Out Alive At The End Of Fixer Upper?
Though theirs was far from the longest-running home renovation show on HGTV, it was certainly among one of the most popular, and viewers were beside themselves when the Waco, Texas-based couple left Fixer Upper behind after only five seasons and decamped for the greener pastures of their own Magnolia Network, which began in 2021. At the time, they noted that the decision was simply so they could take a “break” and refocus on themselves and their growing family, and with them back on TV within a few years that did turn out to be true.
They recently spoke to Variety about their new series, Fixer Upper: The Lakehouse, which serves as a kind of 10-year anniversary present to all the fans who’ve loved them since the first day of the show that made them famous. When discussing the work they do, Chip revealed that making Fixer Upper all those years ago taught him that “television and construction” are “not terribly compatible,” and noted that they “were not in control of the circumstances” while working on the hit. He added:
There are easy things to put together, like when Jo goes and does a cooking show, it’s been beautiful to watch. That’s a compatible source; you can take this thought and you can take this industry, which is the TV side of the business, and you can put those together fairly seamlessly. With construction and real customers and real timelines, these are complicated oil-and-water realities to mix together. We were the tail and there was a dog wagging us, years and years ago, and it was fine. And it worked out and by the grace of God, we learned a lot and we all made it out alive.
As you can probably see, he was able to talk about how difficult and time-consuming it was to film the series while giving props to it, HGTV and everyone who helped make it a success. Though they had been renovating together since 2003, it was their very first TV show and they didn’t really know what they were in for, especially because (as Chip noted) the network found them and presented the idea for a series.
Of course, their fans know all too well that this was far from their only business venture or personal project during that time. The Gaineses were also still working on renos that weren’t for the show, raising a growing family, and starting a lifestyle brand, retail stores and restaurants, among other things. So, it would be fair to say that they were stretched pretty thin and simply needed to step back a bit. As Joanna said:
When you think about the original Fixer and the template of around 17 episodes a season and they were hourlong episodes and you’d get this reno within that hour, that’s TV gold. And we did that for five seasons and we worked our butts off for it and when we look back, we don’t know how we did it. It was so much going on, because not only were we doing the show and these renovations, we were doing other renovations, and doing Magnolia, which is the retail side and growing that business as well.
Honestly, I’ve never really understood how anyone with young children gets anything not directly kid-raising related done, so it’s rather pleasant to see that even Chip and Jo (who, like of lot of these renovating couples can seem somewhat perfect and unflappable) look back on that time fondly but wonder how they came out on the other side with a lot of gas left in their joint creative/entrepreneurial tank.
Not only did they have the energy to launch Magnolia Network, a lifestyle magazine, and a number of other booming businesses, but they also had their fifth child in 2018.
What Did Joanna Gaines Say About Weird Renovation Finds While Filming Fixer Upper?
To help make their return to television easier, they’ve put out other limited series like The Lakehouse under the name that made them famous, like when they started their network with Fixer Upper: Welcome Home, with Fixer Upper: The Castle coming along in 2022, and 2023’s Fixer Upper: The Hotel. And, with all that fixin’ up, you can bet they’ve run into some strange things that previous owners have done to the homes. As Joanna tells it:
It’s always in the primary bedroom. You wonder what filming has taken place in there. Some of those things I block out. It is typically things we find in the bedroom that we may not even show because we like to keep it family friendly. But I think in every house, you find something that you’re like, what do you do with that? But it makes me so happy when people just do things to their home, from a design standpoint, if it makes you happy and it makes sense to you.
See? I knew Jo was cool; no yucking of yums from that lady, even when it comes to what sounds like some very NSFW master bedroom design details that are so inappropriate for youngsters that the mom of five has blocked that info from her memory! You can catch their latest G-rated show right now with your Max subscription.
