Fixer Upper alum Chip Gaines had been in the home renovation business long before his hit show with wife Joanna Gaines premiered in 2013. The Waco, Texas, native opened up about how he got into the business while partnering with Bobcat to give homeowners tips on tackling an outdoor project.
“I’m an entrepreneur to my core. The idea for my first company came to me while I was sitting in a business class in college. But it wasn’t the professor’s lecture that had my mind racing,” Chip, 49, recalled. “I’d caught a glimpse out the window of a man on a riding lawn mower and couldn’t help but wish I was sitting in his seat instead. It wasn’t a few weeks later that I bought my first mower and started knocking on doors.”
He continued, “Though farm chores and construction work are some of the most physically demanding jobs that I do, when I keep my mind set on the thrill of the discovery — what it’s all going to look like or what I’ll get to learn on the other side — it’s a whole lot more natural to love the work itself. And there’s something really satisfying about work that feels like it’s giving you purpose.”
The Capital Gaines author previously revealed that he switched from the lawn care business to flipping houses after he discovered that real estate was a much more lucrative gig.
“When I flipped that first house, and I basically made on that first flip about what I made in the previous year in the lawn maintenance business, it kind of dawned on me,” Chip said in March 2023. “Like, hold on a second, I did this one flip in my spare time like a side hustle and I made about what I made last on my entire income? And so I got the bug pretty quick and jumped in with both feet.”
Chip and Joanna, 45, of course, got their start after being discovered by HGTV producers who came across their home-flipping work in a blog.
“I think it is their perfect imperfections,” Allison Page, the general manager at HGTV, told Texas Monthly in October 2016. “They have the kind of marriage and family you’d want. It’s not perfect. He does silly things, and they occasionally trip over their words or sweat on each other. They are the best of what’s real in life.”
The couple – who share sons Drake, Duke and Crew, and daughters Ella and Emme – went on to reach superstar levels of fame throughout their show’s five seasons. Viewers were shocked when they announced their departure from Fixer Upper in September 2017.
“[The children are] so young, and we want to give them the chance to have a normal childhood,” Joanna said at the time. “Family is the most important thing in the world.”
According to Chip, filming the series was no longer fun but felt like “more of a job” toward the end.
Despite having a large farm filled with animals and five little ones running around at home, Chip and Jo returned to television with the launch of their own network, Magnolia Network, in January 2022.
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