The Magnolia Story (with Bonus Content)

by Chip Gaines

  I also love the fact that we had never quit.

  We fought like cats and dogs to the bitter end, and one thing led to the other. Next thing you know, the remodeling business was booming, our flips were flipping, rentals were renting, and banks started lending again. All that happened right around the time the TV show got picked up in 2013.

  Then all of a sudden we had these camera crews around us, and all these assistant directors and sound guys and production assistants and network executives were telling us how unique we were, and how they loved our work, and how great this TV show was going to be. It was all just surreal, like one of those dreams where you can’t tell fact from fiction.

  Honestly, I needed that boost after going through all of those ups and downs. I just felt vindicated. We’d spent all this time doing the best we could every day, and for people to notice it was just very rewarding.

  It was certainly not about the money. There are very talented artists and craftsmen of all sorts who do amazing work and aren’t rich. But for us to come out on the other side having a little money again and having some accolades coming in—yeah, it was nice.

  One thing we were excited to do was to get Peggy’s son his money, to refinance that owner-financed loan he’d been so generous to extend to us. He had been so patient, but now the Villas were in a great place. That made it much easier for the banks to take him out—finally. Which is exactly what he’d said would happen.

  As things continued to improve and our business got healthier and healthier, we wanted to get one last thing cleared up. So, we called up the couple who had loaned us the $100,000 that allowed us to keep going during that terrible downturn. “Hey,” we said when they answered the phone. “We were in the neighborhood. Do you mind if we come by and say hi?”

  We had originally told them that our intention was to pay that money back within a year. When that year came and went and we told them it would take a while longer, they didn’t fuss one bit. In fact, they reiterated their original position. Their generosity was crippling. In a world full of contracts and legalities, they could have chosen to throw the terms of this deal in our face, but instead they chose to be gracious and patient as we worked this out.

  We stopped by that day and we handed them a check for $130,000.

  I said, “Even though this is what we agreed on, I just want you to know I feel like I owe you infinitely more than that. You both have meant the world to us. We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for you.”

  They both got tears in their eyes. “This came at just the right time.”

  As I’ve mentioned, they weren’t independently wealthy people, and it turns out they were in a spot where they needed to make some decisions for their family. Having that money at their disposal was going to help make those decisions easier.

  Getting both of those loans taken care of felt so good. Those were people who had bent over backward for us. We honestly wouldn’t even be here talking about any of this if it weren’t for them.

  Want to hear something even more interesting? When it came to the couple who loaned us that money, we wound up circling back with them. A year after we paid them back, they came to us looking to buy a new house. They even came with a big renovation budget to work with. And guess how much they budgeted for renovations? $130,000. They turned right around and sank that exact amount of money into their dream home. What are the chances? These circumstances were woven in such a way that you had to just sit back and marvel.

  Most things in life are just beyond our planning and our control. Even when it comes to the farm, back when we first fell in love with the land, we had all sorts of doubts about spending more money than we had in order to buy it.

  “We shouldn’t be doing this,” we said.

  “Is this stupid?” we wondered.

  But now both of us agree: God allowed Peggy’s son to owner-finance that for us. He knew that in this season of life we were about to encounter, we would need a place to retreat to, where our kids could be away from it all and we could center ourselves. We truly believe that God put those plans in action because he knew what we would need as a family, even though we didn’t have any clue what we needed ourselves.

  How could we have possibly known that bringing some cameras in to film Chip and me at work and at home on the farm would turn into a big hit TV show? Apparently other people knew. The network people were confident about it. But we certainly didn’t know.

  From what we’d heard, reality TV shows were all about people yelling and screaming and flipping tables over for the cameras. What we would come to learn is that every show is different; every situation is unique. The network didn’t ask us to do anything other than be ourselves.

  What we learned from being around the folks at HGTV is that shows that have a heart behind them and are authentic tend to have the most loyal audiences. The other thing we have learned about television is we are thankful to be associated with HGTV and with High Noon Entertainment, the production company that films our show. Both have been good to us. They have honored our family, our story, and our town. They didn’t have to do that. And no matter how this all shakes out, we will be forever grateful to them for allowing us to tell our story.

  I have to say I’m glad authenticity is something they wanted, because that was all they were going to get from Chip and me. Nobody could ever script Chip Carter Gaines, even if they tried. And I would never have signed on if I couldn’t be myself. I’ve come way too far in my life and career to compromise now, and for HGTV to allow us to be faithful to who we are and to showcase our business and our expertise has been an absolute honor.

  We love our kids, we love each other, we love this town, and we love our clients. That’s the heart behind our show. We’re a real couple and a real company, and we do real jobs for people with real budgets. When there’s heart and substance on a TV show, the drama just isn’t needed.

  What we do on camera is what we do in real life.

  Well, there is one exception: that big canvas. We love to surprise our clients, but we’d never done that before, of course.

  Chip and the producer came up with that idea at the very last minute when we were working on the pilot. There was a problem as to how to surprise the client, and as always, Chip got with the Boys and figured it out. I suppose that could be considered a bit of “drama” that we added to the show. But even that came from the heart.

  It never gets old—that moment when we pull back that picture and we see our clients’ faces as they experience their fixed-up new home for the very first time. We’ve spent weeks, sometimes months, getting to know these people, and it’s just very moving to us to make them happy. Chip and I both know how important home is, and we love sharing that feeling with them.

  That we get to have a show like this on national television, doing exactly what we’re passionate about, is really a gift. They left it unscripted from the start, and I think people feel that. This is just our life!

  I mean, honestly, I don’t think there’s anyone on television who’d pick up a dead cockroach off the floor and pop it into his mouth on camera. My husband is that guy. He has always been that guy—especially when fifty bucks is on the line. Come hang out with a bunch of his old college buddies sometime and listen to their “Chip stories,” and you’ll know for certain that the Chip you see on TV is the same Chip we all see at home. He just has a way of making things fun.

  There are times at the end of a long day in front of the cameras when I just want to be done. It’s a lot of work to not only do our job but also keep our energy up and try to get what they need for the cameras. But Chip will extend our day even further by annoying the heck out of me—trying out bad jokes and performing silly antics while the cameras are rolling, just to keep it amusing.

  If it wasn’t for him making me laugh, though, I might just work myself to death.

  That’s another funny thing that’s changed since we moved to the farm: Jo seems to work twice as hard as I do now. She always has t
en things going on. I used to be the one sort of juggling a million things at once, but now I’ve slowed down a little bit and she’s sped up. It’s interesting how roles can change like that.

  I think that’s just part of what’s come along with the kids getting older too. Once they were in school, it became a whole lot easier to get work done outside the home. But being dedicated to our kids also meant we had to keep this TV show thing close to home. That meant setting some ground rules early on.

  We carved out certain hours each day that we needed to set aside for family and business and insisted we would never travel more than thirty minutes outside of the Waco area for our renovation projects. We needed to be home for our kids, and their needs were going to come first as much as humanly possible.

  We did try to be flexible, of course, knowing they were spending a lot of money to shoot this show and paying that whole professional crew who showed up in Waco with all of their equipment and trucks and union rules. So some compromise seemed in order. But we’ve still tried to stick to our ground rules as much as possible, even after the show took off and we knew it was a hit.

  Honestly, we had no idea what we were in for.

  No idea at all. The pilot alone earned big ratings when they aired it in May of 2013.

  Everyone at the network got pretty excited.

  But once the first episode of the series aired in April of 2014, the show just took off. I mean, took off like wildfire. Suddenly we were being recognized even when we left Waco. People were stopping us in stores and coming up to us at restaurants. I didn’t know so many people watched HGTV. And I couldn’t believe how many people had seen our show.

  We still don’t own a TV, so the only way we knew when a show was on—if we didn’t go to a friend’s house to watch—was when our phones would blow up with texts of congratulations or when e-mails would begin streaming in from all over the country asking us to do remodels.

  We started getting all sorts of interview requests, and folks were asking us to speak at their events or their churches. It was absolutely crazy. Overnight our lives were turned upside down.

  I was just real thankful we had the peace and quiet of the farm to go back to at the end of every day. It really did become our sanctuary.

  Our home became more important than it had ever been. As we said a little earlier, I think God knew that place was exactly what our family needed in this new season. I am just so grateful for so many of the things we accomplished and even the challenges we went through before we landed on TV. Truly, if we hadn’t gone through that whole journey together, I don’t know how Chip and I could ever keep up with the schedule or the pressures brought on by the wonderful opportunities that keep popping up in our lives.

  When it comes to success, fame, money, and all those things people think they want in life, I think a lot of us tend to get it backward. This is one of the lessons I’m thankful for learning on the bumpy road we took before landing ourselves on TV.

  Most people think that you start off not thriving. Then you get a TV show or some other amazing opportunity, you get fame, you get fortune, and then you thrive. That’s certainly what I thought earlier in my own life. But what’s interesting to me is that Chip and I got to a place where we were thriving—as a couple, as a family, as business partners—before any of this new success unfolded.

  Our marriage never suffered in all we’ve gone through because Chip and I were drawn even closer together, knowing down deep in our hearts that we had to hold on to each other if we were ever going to make it out alive.

  It was in the middle of all that struggle that I found my true inspiration as a designer—the very thing that so many people seem to be drawn to now that I’ve received this opportunity to share my work with the world.

  I always thought that the “thriving” would come when everything was perfect, and what I learned is that it’s actually down in the mess that things get good.

  It was such a blessing to find myself thriving in the middle of the pain. Unless you find a way to do that, there’s always going to be this fake illusion that once you get there—wherever “there” is for you—you’ll be happy. But that’s just not life. If you can’t find happiness in the ugliness, you’re not going to find it in the beauty, either.

  I have learned that if you’re looking for perfection in your house, you can get it. But as soon as you have it, you’re going to sit on your couch and find you’re still unhappy. You’ll find yourself continuing to say, “What’s next? What now? What do I need to do?”

  I worked hard to try to do it all, to try to live up to the Pinterest perfection that only leaves you discontented. I finally realized that life isn’t found on the pages of a magazine—life is found in the glass of spilled milk and in the long, narrow hallway filled with socks and soccer balls.

  For the first four years of having kids, I threw elaborate birthday parties. I spent money we shouldn’t have spent. And then I realized that my two-year-olds didn’t even notice all the details I’d spent so much time and money on. All they wanted was cake! And I did all this for what? For me? To look impressive?

  Now I make homemade cakes, I blow up balloons and we pop them. That’s all. Kids just want to be kids. They don’t obsess about all the details. What they might remember are all the silly faces mom makes when she blows up balloons and the taste of that homemade cake with sprinkles. That’s what they’ll remember. Not a picture-perfect party.

  I had to learn the hard way. I had to go through those kind of “What is my intention behind these things?” questions. I had to go through that feeling that many moms get when the party is over and you’re exhausted and mad that you spent all the money before I could share this message with others.

  Ready for it? Here it is.

  Letting it all go is freeing. (And it’s cheaper too!)

  I am learning that getting our intentions right simplifies our decisions in life and changes our perspective. And in the end, what it’s all about is thankfulness and contentment.

  In December of 2014, a friend of mine forwarded me a blog post written by a woman who was dying of cancer. Kara Tippetts was thirty-seven years old, and she was in her last months of life as she typed out her post. I’m paraphrasing here, but what she said was, “I’m watching this show in the hospital called Fixer Upper, and my kids are at home. I have four kids like them. I wish I could be in my own bed and decorate my house for Christmas.”

  We were in the middle of filming, working on multiple renovation projects at once, and dealing with the craziness of the holiday season like any other family. But I said, “Chip, I’m going to see her. I feel like I’m supposed to go and decorate her house for Christmas.”

  We wrote to let her know we were coming, and two close friends of mine hopped on a plane with me to Colorado. When we got to her house, she was upstairs, lying in bed. She had been in the hospital for some time, and she was glad to be home. She was in a lot of pain, but being home with her family gave her comfort.

  Kara had lost her hair during chemo and had just started growing it back when I met her. When I walked into her room and saw her for the first time, she radiated so much peace and beauty in the midst of her evident pain. She was so sick that she wasn’t supposed to stand up to give me a hug, but she struggled and asked for help and stood up and did it anyway.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

  Kara’s house was chaotic. It was full of life. Full of her life. She didn’t choose quiet, peaceful, alone time in her final days. She wanted to be in the middle of it all.

  I didn’t know why I was there. I didn’t know what I could do for her. And it turned out, I think, that she did more for me. The more we spoke, the more amazed I was at her story. She chose to find the joy in the midst of suffering. Every inch of her home reflected beauty and life. Before she got sick she had been intentional about celebrating this sweet season of life with four young children—not for anyone else, but her own babies. She had found the secret, and her
children thrived there.

  I found myself wondering, “What would the world be like if everybody had her mind-set?” She just reconfirmed for me a million times over that it’s up to us to choose contentment and thankfulness now—and to stop imagining that we have to have everything perfect before we’ll be happy.

  I was struggling at that particular time of my life, trying to incorporate the cameras and the long days of filming a TV show around everything else that was going on in our lives. But I left Colorado with an entirely new resolve: I would never forget that all of this is a blessing. I would never forget to be thankful—and to find joy.

  Kara passed away a couple of months after our visit. Even though I only visited with her for a couple of days, I felt like I had lost a mentor and dear friend. Her example helped ignite a spark in me to see things differently and to live wholly and intentionally for those closest to me.

  I am thankful our show paved a path for me to meet Kara. She was a gift.

  People ask us sometimes, “Why the connection? Why are people drawn to Fixer Upper and the way you and Chip interact?”

  I can’t fully answer that question. I honestly don’t know. But I think—I hope—that a lot of it has to do with the way we’ve chosen to live our lives.

  And I hope our example is a good one.

  FIFTEEN

  THE BLOOM

  In May of 2014, just after the first season of Fixer Upper started airing, we did something that had seemed unimaginable eight years earlier. I turned the key in the other direction and reopened my little shop on Bosque Boulevard.

  Earlier in January of that same year, Chip and I had traveled to Scottsdale, Arizona, to watch the Baylor Bears play in a national bowl game on New Year’s Day. I had a twofold purpose for the trip. I wanted to watch the Bears beat the University of Central Florida with Chip. (Unfortunately the Bears lost, much to Chip’s dismay.) And I wanted time to get fresh perspective for the New Year.